We’re headed back to the US today. No time to write. But here’s the latest...
The Dow down 190. Oil over $100.
And the US hits another milestone on the road to Hell. This, from Stephen Dinan at The Washington Times:
The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the federal debt has climbed to a record $15 trillion — a staggering figure that caps a precipitous decade-long rise.The exact total stood at $15,033,607,255,920.32 as of the end of business Tuesday, marking a jump of $56 billion over Monday’s tally. All told, federal US debt has risen $4.407 trillion since President Obama took office. It stood at $5.7 trillion in 2001, when George W. Bush moved into the White House.
“Today marks an infamous day in American history,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican.
The announcement was made a day before Congress was poised to pass a bill that would continue the high rate of spending into 2012, and as a special committee continued to talk about ways to slow the steep rise in deficits projected for the foreseeable future.
None of those efforts would cut the US debt, but would slow the rate of growth.
Republicans say that underscores the need for immediate spending cuts to get a handle on the budget.
They said Congress will have that chance this week when the House votes on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
Democrats were silent on the $15 trillion debt milepost, though on the broader issue of deficits they say the economy is so weak that it needs more spending in the short term.
In the longer term, they argue, government cannot be cut down to the size it was for most of the post-World War II era, and instead must raise taxes to pay for all of its promises such as Social Security and Medicare while funding defense, education, food stamps and other basic domestic needs.
Mr. Obama has proposed several debt-reduction plans this year, but Republicans have rejected each of them for not tackling the long- term growth of entitlement programs and instead relying too heavily on taxes. In contrast, House Republicans’ budget this year focused on entitlements and didn’t increase any taxes. Senate Democrats haven’t brought a budget to their chamber floor in more than two years.
That leaves the two parties deadlocked, as borrowing continues apace.
Mr. Obama is averaging a US debt increase of more than $1.5 trillion a year during his term in office, compared with an average of $612.4 billion for Mr. Bush and $192.5 billion a year under President Clinton.
By late Wednesday, the House and Senate Republican campaign committees began to use the US debt figure in attacks on Democrats seeking election next year.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said the new figure underscores the need for a fiscal conservative to bring “responsibility back to our nation’s capital.”
What? Wasn’t George W. Bush supposed to be a ‘fiscal conservative?’
Regards,
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by whathappened on 25 November 2011:
Some years ago Allen Greenspan testifying before congress said something like this. The thing I am most afraid of is Wage Inflation, if I see it I will raise interest rates to put people out of work. The gov then proceded to raise their pay and benefits at the same time flooding the country with cheap labor to break the back of the american worker. These people many of them coming here illegally have had children and their children had children they are citizens and require a huge pile of money for basic needs. The gov has decided to provide that money They could not ask the voters for more taxes because the voters would have said NO so they financed the money from borrowing and printing. Now they have bankrupted the people and the whole US Maybe it would have happened anyway but it is now over. We passed the point of no return and now the plane is runing out of fuel over the ocean Happy landings