January 07, 2004

The national debt went up $86 billion in one day, from December 30, 2003 to December 31, 2003. Don't tell me that Secretary of the Treasury John Snow isn’t another tricky dick perhaps even more so than his predecessor.

Throughout the month of December the federal government was doing pretty good, not borrowing much, just enough to replace maturing securities, and sometimes even not replacing all of them in order to reduce the debt a little.

Then on the very last day of the month the national debt jumps from $6.915 trillion that it held on December 30th to $7.001 trillion on the 31st, an increase of $86 billion. Overall, the debt went up $76 billion for the month.

Fortunately, I downloaded the Bureau of Public Debt's web page on Friday when they reported the debt for the thirtieth, because by Monday they were reporting the accumulated debt for January second. This little trick allows them to show the ending balance for December 31st under "Prior Months" without showing the thirty days that preceded it and thus sort of hiding the fact that it went up so far in one day. You can see this for yourself by clicking here for December 30th and here for December 31st, the report from Monday.

In the last three months, the first quarter of fiscal 2004, the national debt has gone up $218.1 billion. That's an average of $72.8 billion per month. If that continues, we will have a national debt increase of $873 billion this year, the real deficit.

Congress and the administration raised the national debt limit almost one trillion dollars last May 26th. At this rate, we'll again hit the debt limit by mid-May of this year, five months from now.

Visit Ed Henry's own web site!

Archives

New York Times - Trying, But Wrong Again

Mafia Tactics -- Extorting Weaker Nations

Storm The Bastille -Cut The Debt By 42% -- $2.9 Trillion

Vanished - $86 Billion

Debt - Chalk Up Another $52.4 Billion

Credibility Gap -- Bush Vs. Reality

Prescription Drugs, The Scam Continues