.OFF THE WIRE
Government Reopens, Spends $328 Billion In A Single Day
After lawmakers came to an agreement to disregard the Nation’s debt ceiling on Wednesday evening, the Federal government reopened and commenced business as usual: In a single day, the Nation’s burgeoning government machine racked up $328 billion in new debt....
According to new figures posted to the Treasury Department website on Friday, the Nation’s debt now equals $17.075 trillion.
Because of Treasury’s “extraordinary measures,” the Nation’s debt had stagnated at around $16.7 trillion for a period of nearly five months. But Wednesday’s debt ceiling disregard deal gave Treasury the power to instantly rebalance its books and rack up additional debts.
Currently, there is no limit to how much debt the government can accumulate between now and Feb. 7 because Congress opted for a debt ceiling deadline, rather than requiring lawmakers to suffer the political consequences of having to vote for or against a solid figure for the amount of debt the government will take on in coming months. Based on the figures released Friday, that means the government could rack up more than $700 billion in new debt before the issue is revisited.
The national debt was reported at $10.6 trillion on the day President Barack Obama took office.