Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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

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.]


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @04:49PM (4 children)

    by ants_in_pants (6665) on Friday September 15 2017, @04:49PM (#568537)

    The US has its debtors by the balls too. If the US defaults, their economies crash.

    --
    -Love, ants_in_pants
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Friday September 15 2017, @04:56PM (2 children)

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @04:56PM (#568542)

    So what you're saying is that the world doesn't even need nukes anymore? Sounds like the whole world already one step away from a cataclysmic collapse without having to fire a single shot.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ants_in_pants on Friday September 15 2017, @05:10PM

      by ants_in_pants (6665) on Friday September 15 2017, @05:10PM (#568551)

      Nah, you need nukes when the money-shuffling stops working and you need some other way to bully the world into submission.

      --
      -Love, ants_in_pants
    • (Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Monday September 18 2017, @02:48AM

      by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 18 2017, @02:48AM (#569605) Journal

      Financial crash of 2008 says hi... and that next time it's going to be bigger.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday September 15 2017, @05:22PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday September 15 2017, @05:22PM (#568562)

    A principle President Trump did business by, but goes back to at least the 1940's: When you owe the bank $100,000 and have trouble paying it back, you have a problem. When you owe the bank $100 million and have trouble paying it back, the bank has a problem.

    That said, right now there are a lot of people in the US government who would love to default on the largest creditor of the United States: The Social Security Administration. It's possible to look at that as money the US government owes itself, but another way of looking at is is that this loan shifted the tax burden from the progressive income tax to the regressive payroll tax so that rich Americans don't have to pay as high a percentage of their income in taxes as everybody else.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.