Featured U.S. debt clock surges past $18 trillion

Debt "surges". As if it reached back and kicked on the turbocharger and shot ahead. Yeah sure. The increase in debt has (mostly) been steadily declining for the past 5 years. Unless you call a 2.3% increase last year a surge. Here are the increases in the national debt, year-by-year, on a percentage basis:

2009.....19.0% increase over 2008
2010.....13.9% increase over 2009
2011.....9.1%
2012.....8.6%
2013.....4.2%
2014.....6.5%

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

 

Let's pray that it keeps up that rate of decline. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll have a surplus.

 

A surplus is a bad thing. It means the government has collected more taxes from the tax payers than it needed.

 

Off topic.

The US debt has not "surged". That is the subject matter of your OP, not what Obama said about Bush seven years ago.

 

That's not a rate of decline in the actual debt. That is a decline in the rate the debt has been increasing year-to-year. The debt is still increasing, just not as fast as before.

 

When you're 18 trillion in debt, a surplus is technically impossible. What i meant to say was that maybe we'll stay paying it off.

 

Well, please go right ahead and correct my math. The numbers are at the article I linked. Have at it.

 

I realize this. But in my high hopes, I am saying that maybe one day it will cease to increase.

 

The budget deficit is decreasing at a nice clip, though that wouldn't be hard after the heights it attained in 2009-2010. For last fiscal year it was at $483 Billion, about where it was at for Bush in 2007. Bush did get the deficit down to about $150 Billion in 2006. The debt won't decrease until the budget shows a surplus, and even then interest will continue to drive the debt higher.

 

So what, then, is the end game?

 

In order to pay down the debt, there needs to be budget surpluses. This would not be too difficult to attain if the politicians in Congress would show some courage and cut spending.

The debt does not need to reach zero, it just needs to become an insignificantly low amount relative to the country's GDP. The nation's debt is not like a family's debt where there is a mortgage and credit cards that need to be paid down to nothing. As long as there are citizens paying taxes there will be revenues for the government and it will continue to go on. There is no "end game" unless you figure the U.S. should cease to exist. Spending has got to get under control, though.

 

Which didn't surge. Which is seeing a decrease in the rate of its growth.

 

It's called lying with statistics.

Running a smaller deficit now than he did in 2009 is no accomplishment at all. He's still running a huge deficit. Just not as huge as 2009.

The national debt continues to increase and there is no way around the fact that it has increased more under Obama than all the presidents we have had added together.

Revenues are up but spending is still up more. Not much to brag about.

 

Not a chance. Entitlements ar increasing too fast for taxes to catch up.

Course they could always use some Obamacare math and count the same things 2 or 3 times and make it work on paper.

But any increase in government revenues will quickly be spent...and then some.

 

Who is lying with statistics?

Agreed. He ran it up. It's coming down, seemingly in spite of him.

Well, this is false. When Obama took over the debt was at about 11 Billion. It is now at 18 Billion. So he's added 7 Billion; all his predecessors added 11 Billion.

Actually, revenues are up but spending is virtually level. Here is the spending numbers since 2011 (or since Reps took control of the House):

2011.....$6.16 Trillion
2012.....$6.15 Trillion
2013.....$6.08 Trillion
2014.....$6.12 Trillion