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US National Debt Hits Historic $20 Trillion Mark

posted by martyb on Friday September 15 2017, @12:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the mucha-moolah dept.

DeathMonkey writes:

The U.S. national debt reached $20 trillion for the first time ever last Friday after President Trump signed a bipartisan bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months.

While at Camp David, Mr. Trump, with the stroke of his presidential pen, increased the statutory debt last Friday by approximately $318 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Before the bill's completion, the U.S. debt was sitting around $19.84 trillion.

The legislation allowed the Treasury Department to start borrowing again immediately after several months of using "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default. The bill passed last Thursday 80-17 in the Senate and in the House 316-90 on Friday. Around $15 billion in emergency funding for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts was attached to the borrowing measure.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-hits-historic-20-trillion-mark/

[That works out to just shy of $62,000 per American. --Ed.]

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by rondon on Friday September 15 2017, @12:47PM (4 children)

    by rondon (5167) on Friday September 15 2017, @12:47PM (#568402)

    Does building this straw man and burning him down make you feel better? If it does, by all means keep building and burning. If it doesn't, why not make any one of the hundreds of rational arguments as to why we should be balancing the budget and reducing our debt?

    Here, I will start - the United States government should start reducing spending on the military in order to balance the budget, because going into debt to create a mighty military practically guarantees that we will have to use that military and find a stupid war to get involved in.

    I'm not saying my argument is the best, but I will say it is better than a straw man. Maybe we can try to find consensus on how to fix the problem?

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Rivenaleem on Friday September 15 2017, @12:51PM (2 children)

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Friday September 15 2017, @12:51PM (#568404)

    Burning straw ment is terrible for the environment. I propose that straw men become the new unit of currency. This way we will be incentivised to sequester atmospheric CO2 by growing more and more straw.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @01:30PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @01:30PM (#568414)

      How about a "Burning Straw Man Festival"?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:00PM (#568432)

        This is sexist against Straw Women.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Friday September 15 2017, @04:41PM

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:41PM (#568531)

    Whoosh...that just went right over your head. Some people just don't get sarcasm.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.