Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.]

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
US National Debt Hits Historic $20 Trillion Mark | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 133 comments | Search Discussion
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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:50PM (#568539)
    Well, I might as well earn my "Redundant" label.
    -----------------
     Please see this comment. [soylentnews.org]

    That's what this endless horde of suckers never understands.

    Money is just an accounting technology; there are real resources being allocated and used up.

    That $20 trillion debt represents resources that have been used up, with no sign of that use having been productive enough to make society wealthier.

    People, it really is just like a credit card debt: If you buy TVs and computers and groceries and toiletries on credit, those are real resources being allocated to you, and you are promising to use those resources in a way that will be productive enough to benefit the lender, too. Well, if you don't work a day in your life, and therefore never pay off that credit card debt, then you're just going to use up those resources without anyone else benefiting. That is theft.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   1  

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:46AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday September 16 2017, @07:46AM (#568878) Journal

    Well, I might as well earn my "Redundant" label.

    Unpossible. If you earn a Redundant mod, it becomes an "informative" mod, since we will have seen what you did there. To truly be redundant, you have to not earn it, but just be it, like the TMB. Endless repetition, which no actual contribution to the discussion, spewed across all comment threads. Some might call it, "spam"? Or "Tim", but more likely spam, with or without bloody Vikings.