National debt tops $16 trillion

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September 4, 2012

National debt tops $16 trillion

Associated Press Associated Press Tue Sep 04, 2012, 06:39 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the national debt has topped $16 trillion, the result of chronic government deficits that have poured more than $50,000 worth of red ink onto federal ledgers for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The news was greeted with a round of press releases from Barack Obama's GOP rivals, who used the grim-but-expected news to criticize the president for the government's fiscal performance over his 3 1/2 years in office. Obama has presided over four straight years of trillion dollar-plus deficits after inheriting a weak economy from his predecessor, George W. Bush.

"We can no longer push off the tough decisions until tomorrow," said No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor, R-Va. "It's time to address the serious fiscal challenges we face and stop spending money we don't have." Last summer, Cantor dropped out of a set of budget talks hosted by Vice President Joe Biden, citing the insistence of the White House on tax increases to help close deficits that require the government to borrow 33 cents of every dollar it spends.

The spiraling debt means that lawmakers and the eventual winner of the White House in November will have to pass a law early next year to raise the government's borrowing cap from the current ceiling of $16.39 trillion. Passing such legislation last year proved enormously difficult and the nation's credit rating suffered.

First, however, lawmakers will try during a post-election lame duck session to renew Bush-era tax cuts and head off a round of forced budget austerity as automatic budget cuts are scheduled in January to slam both the Pentagon and domestic programs. Those cuts were required by another failed set of budget talks last fall by a bipartisan "supercommittee."

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said: "This debt will not only be a liability for our kids and grandkids, but economists also tell us that it will limit economic growth and kill millions of jobs now and in the future." Portman was a member of last year's failed supercommittee, which deadlocked over taxes and cuts to popular benefit programs.

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