Debt Increased $54.1 Billion While Congress Fought Over Cutting $38.5 Billion

Before anyone celebrates, or bemoans, the spending cuts in last night’s budget deal, here’s a little perspective:

The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal made by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September.

The debt was $14.2101 trillion on March 30, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and $14.2642 on April 7.

That comes out to a net loss of about $15,600,000,000.

 

FILED UNDER: Congress, Deficit and Debt, US Politics, , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Southern Hoosier says:

    Comrade Obama can’t blame that on GW.

  2. Dean says:

    Unfortunately for the Republicans, they had no choice but to accept a weak budget deal. Regardless of how things played out, if there was a shutdown they were going to get the blame. If the point you raised, Doug, was being shared daily by the media, I think the public would have been much more demanding of greater spending cuts.

  3. Mehdi Limonadi says:

    Wow dense are we Souther Hoosier? You forget that the reason the deficit is always increasing is because of our ongoing funding of military soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars started by Bush. Sorry to burst your lack of logic.

  4. Southern Hoosier says:

    Mehdi Limonadi says: Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 15:09

    Wow dense are we Souther Hoosier? You forget that the reason the deficit is always increasing is because of our ongoing funding of military soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars started by Bush. Sorry to burst your lack of logic.”

    You mean Comrade Obama stop funding the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya?

    As of February 2010, around $704 billion has been spent based on estimates of current expenditure rates
    FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan.
    FY2011 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

    According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy.

    The Bloomberg news is not exactly some right wing rag.
    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/

    Bush spent about $574 billion on the war on the war in seven years. Obama has spent $289 billion during the 2 years he as been in office. And another $12.8 trillion in bailouts and stimulates in two years.

    Now I may be a little dense as you say, but $12.8 trillion is a hell of a lot more than a mere $574 billion GW spent on the war.

  5. Axel Edgren says:

    So reducing the scale of the current war effort is like a casual thing? It is easily done?

    No politician sacrifices himself – and I don’t think they should. Give Obama certainty that reducing the scale of the war effort will be rewarded and he will do it. He is in the Oval Office because he wants the world to look more like he wants it to: so when he looks at a situation he doesn’t just do what is right – he has to consider his future. Otherwise, he will spend too much political capital, and while he will get things done in the short term he won’t in the long term.

    So if you can make Obama think he can safely reduce troop levels and war spending, he will. But right now, any downtick in military spending will write a lot of “Obama makes the US look weak-ass and less capable of defending itself, just like those girly-men in the US wants!” slogans. Obama can’t read your mind Southern Hoosier. Your actions speak louder than your words, and a Republican 4 Life doesn’t exactly have much to offer him. You are a lost cause.

  6. Southern Hoosier says:

    Axel Edgren says: Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 17:24

    So reducing the scale of the current war effort is like a casual thing? It is easily done?

    You have me confused with someone else who is blaming the budget crisis on defense spending.

    Mehdi Limonadi says: Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 15:09
    Wow dense are we Souther Hoosier? You forget that the reason the deficit is always increasing is because of our ongoing funding of military soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars started by Bush. Sorry to burst your lack of logic.”

    Want to cut spending? Elect more Republicans.

    A Republican budget plan due to be unveiled on Tuesday would cut $5.8 trillion from U.S. spending over the next 10 years, a congressional aide familiar with the proposal said on Monday.”

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/05/usa-budget-cuts-idUSN0429071020110405

  7. An Interested Party says:

    Want to cut spending? Elect more Republicans.

    Oh really? That didn’t work out too well when more Republicans were elected to Congress and the GOP had the White House…

  8. Southern Hoosier says:

    An Interested Party says:Saturday, April 9, 2011 at 20:20

    Oh really? That didn’t work out too well when more Republicans were elected to Congress and the GOP had the White House…

    Even when the GOP was spending like drunken sailors, that was no match for what Comrade Obama and the Democrats are doing now.

    According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy.

    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/

  9. Axel Edgren says:

    “Even when the GOP was spending like drunken sailors, that was no match for what Comrade Obama and the Democrats are doing now.”

    Thank your lucky star for the bailouts and the stimulus.

    “A Republican budget plan due to be unveiled on Tuesday would cut $5.8 trillion from U.S. spending over the next 10 years”

    Um, Ryan’s budget is about as credible as a Qaddafi speech. His assumptions are beyond wishful and it is filled with dubious calculations.

  10. Axel Edgren says:

    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3458

    “Even some critics of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan have praised his “courage” and his willingness to make “hard choices” to address looming deficits. But, upon closer inspection, Chairman Ryan’s widely reported claim that his plan produces $1.6 trillion in deficit reduction proves illusory. In fact, the numbers in his plan show that his budget produces just $155 billion in real deficit reduction over ten years”

    Modern-day republicans suck so much. I think it fascinating that people who genuinely want to do good and care for the best interests of the country still manage to stand for ideas and policies that are as harmful to the US as any terrorist attack.

  11. Southern Hoosier says:

    Axel Edgren says: Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 04:57

    Thank your lucky star for the bailouts and the stimulus.

    Your right, without them we would have 8% unemployment instead of the 9% and a huge national debt we have now. I think we need to spend another $12.8 trillion to push the employment rate even higher. If only we spend enough money we will get out of debt.

  12. Southern Hoosier says:

    Axel Edgren says: Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 04:57 Um, Ryan’s budget is about as credible as a Qaddafi speech. His assumptions are beyond wishful and it is filled with dubious calculations.

    I did like Qaddafi’s Obama my son speech. I remember an old Klingon saying from Star Trek, “Only fools fight in a burning house.” We have elected a bunch of fools that are fighting while our nation goes under. I know the Republicans don’t have all the answers, but I known damn well the Democrats don’t have them either. Things are going to have to get a lot worse before the people say enough is enough. Right now the people aren’t willing to accept the Draconian changes that need to be made,

    By next week our debt will have increased by another $54.1 billion as Congress continues to kick the can down the road and avoids tough, but necessary choices.

  13. wr says:

    Southern Hoosier — Nobody cares about the debt and the deficit. If they did, they wouldn’t have insisted on keeping taxes on the wealthy at historic lows. This nonsense about the impending debt crisis is nothing but a tool to wipe out the social safety net, just as it was in the 90s.

    Remember just ten years ago the same Republican wise men were screaming that we couldn’t keep balancing budgets the way Clinton had, because if we paid down our national debt the world would end, and thus we needed to piss it all away on the Bush tax cuts. (Thank you, Alan Greenspan.)

    Some fairly smart people have fallen for this hype and are now carrying water for the Paul Ryans of the world. A lot of stupid people have picked it up and started screaming about it, too. But they never seem to notice that the ones who are telling them to be terrified of deficits are the same ones who keep cutting taxes on themselves and their supporters.

  14. Southern Hoosier says:

    wr says:Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 18:05

    Southern Hoosier — Nobody cares about the debt and the deficit.

    Right because it isn’t bad enough yet. What about the Kennedy tax cut?

    “It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now … Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

    – John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president’s news conference

    “Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not a reduced – flow of revenues to the federal government.”

    – John F. Kennedy, Jan. 17, 1963, annual budget message to the Congress, fiscal year 1964

    “Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”

    – John F. Kennedy, Jan. 24, 1963, message to Congress on tax reduction and reform, House Doc. 43, 88th Congress, 1st Session.

    “A bill will be presented to the Congress for action next year. It will include an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in both corporate and personal income taxes. It will include long-needed tax reform that logic and equity demand … The billions of dollars this bill will place in the hands of the consumer and our businessmen will have both immediate and permanent benefits to our economy. Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary. And these new jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy.”

    – John F. Kennedy, Aug. 13, 1962, radio and television report on the state of the national economy

    Read more: John F. Kennedy on taxes http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39517#ixzz1JA9s5zUv

  15. wr says:

    Southern Hoosier — Well, you’ve got me there. A Democrat lowered taxes. Tell you what, since you seem to agree with JFK, I’d be thrilled if we lowered taxes just like he did. Let us take the top marginal rate — we’ll have to change the brackets for inflation of course, maybe set it at ten million for this — and set it at the same place he did.

    Because he lowered taxes on the wealthy all the way down to 70%.

    And I think that was probably the right thing to do at the time.

    So let’s get that 70% bracket up and running again. Isn’t it good to know that liberals and conservatives can agree?

  16. Calvin froedge says:

    Wow. Guys both sides spend like crazy. Want positive change? Let government fail….demand it…and face the fact that when your debt begins to exceed your GDP the only option is stopping ALL funding for ALL federal programs.