| National Debt Clock |
Once again the United States in close to running up against its debt limit of $8,965 Billion. The Debt currently stands at 8,947 Billion and increases at a rate of 1.43 Billion a day. So in about 2 weeks the Federal Government runs out of money it can borrow. Congress must pass a law to raise this limit in order to prevent a shutdown. Since no congress person wants to be on the record of voting for more debt and since a new limit must be passed it become quite the political show down. Last time the Democratic minority forced the Republicans to vote for the debt increase. This time since the Republicans are the minority, it looks like the Democrats will have to vote for the increase of the debt limit. It could be quite the show. Also of note the federal budget for Fiscal year 2008 in due at the end of October. Since the Democrats are not getting along with Bush we have yet another opportunity for the government to shutdown if not budget deal is reached. Yeah for gridlock. Here is an interesting essay by Ron Paul back in 2004 about debt limits.
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1 comment:
As it turns out there is Debt that is subject to the limit and debt that is not subject to the limit.
What's the difference between the Public Debt Outstanding and the Public Debt Subject to Limit? As of Aug 13 the debt subject to the limit is 8,882,050,228,491.18 so we still have some time before the government shutsdown or at least congress votes to increase it.
Here is an explanation on what the difference is. I'm not really sure what it means either.
The Public Debt Outstanding represents the face amount or principal amount of marketable and non-marketable securities currently outstanding. The Public Debt Subject to Limit is the maximum amount of money the Government is allowed to borrow without receiving additional authority from Congress. Furthermore, the Public Debt Subject to Limit is the Public Debt Outstanding adjusted for Unamortized Discount on Treasury Bills and Zero Coupon Treasury Bonds, Miscellaneous debt (very old debt), Debt held by the Federal Financing Bank and Guaranteed Debt.
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