US Debt May Soar By $2 Trillion In 2009

Washington Post:

With President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats considering a massive spending package aimed at pulling the nation out of recession, the national debt is projected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, an unprecedented increase that could test the world's appetite for financing U.S. government spending.

For now, investors are frantically stuffing money into the relative safety of the U.S. Treasury, which has come to serve as the world's mattress in troubled times. Interest rates on Treasury bills have plummeted to historic lows, with some short-term investors literally giving the government money for free.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[davidwayneosedach]

When is the economic stimulus/bailout money going to run out? At say $50 trillion? Whos's going to pay it back?

[ThunderclapNewman]

Why would the government pay itself back?

Be specific.

[HumeSkeptic]

The purpose of the stimulus is to stimulate the economy. If it works, one consequence of that would be an inrease in tax revenue, which would be used in reducing the need for further borrowing.

[FogBelter]

The Economic Stimulus/Bailout money will run out when they stop printing it. Who's going to pay it back? Not a necessity to pay it back.

[evan la]

Pay it back? Bwa ha ha ha.

[HumeSkeptic]

This is the price we must pay to switch from the bankrupt "Trickle-Down" to sane ""Trick-Up" economy.

Get behind the new Prez, folks. He is going to need all the support he can get from us. The attacks from those who gave us the present disaster are going to be vicious.

The f@scists are not going to just let us take our country away from their grasp.

Get behind Obama. Show your support by writing letters to Reps and Senators, in your home newspapers, and on blogs.
.

[Viper]

Unfortunately the repugs are already working over time as the BUSH/Repug debts flow in during Obama's Presidency to make this a Democrat problem at least in Rhetoric...

We must bring out that it was a 30 years failure of Voo Doo economics and this is BECAUSE of their Idealogy... every day... every minute for years to come... so this monkey stays on their backs and so no one forgets that their economic idealogy is as big a failure as communsim...

Regards

[Anciano]

Another form of support: We have taken a vow not to spend one cent on anything we don't have to buy at retail such as food or fuel until the Obama administration is sworn in. Bush’s rebates that added $1200 to our tax liability and his pleas to go shopping show the great importance of consumer spending to the legacy of Republican economics. Bush hijacked the country for the benefit of the wealthy for eight years, so let the wealthy keep the Bush consumer economy going for the next month until the Republicans are rightfully flushed in disgrace. Learn about and patronize your smaller locally owned businesses and pay cash so it's under the radar of statistics. We're hoarding our discretionary retail spending until the Obama Administration when the recovery can begin. An “unexpected jump in February retail sales" will make a nice White House-warming gift for Obama.

[inluvwkeitholbermann]

well.......$2 Trillion doesn't go as far as it used to.......

[SonofKemet]

Earth to Americans.......the debt is really at $20 trillion and growing fast and exponentially.

the country you knew is over.....get paid in euros

[iDonkey]

two words

clinton's fault

heh...

[HappyIdiot2008]

One word. No. Heh. :o)

[Chillinout]

You haven't been listening close enough to Rush and his ditto heads. This is all Obama's fault.

If you start from that premise, everything else they say falls into line. Next step after that? WooWooland.

[ThunderclapNewman]

Heh.

[njb444]

Did Rush Limbaugh tell you that? National debt went down significantly under Clinton, while it skyrocketed under Reagan and Bush.

[only1Demvoter]

njb : ( Check your sarcasm meter... )


-ralph

[Hirnlego]

I think you're joking but in case you're not... psst. its reagan and bush who are responsible.

This is what you get when you have "small" governments... it ends up on the credit card. Fiscal conservatism has been non-existant for a long long time.

[Nochnoi]

Good Golly Gee I best go shopping then so my tax dollars can save my government! Shucks Mr. Bush, because of you I don't have any money to go shopping with....

[TiredOfLiars]

Let's "hope" not! Go Barry go!

[inluvwkeitholbermann]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/TiredOfLiars?action=comments

[Mogamboguru]

O/T -

I.s.r.a.e.l.i. .i.n.v.a.s.i.o.n. o.f. .G.a.z.a.s.t.r.i.p has just begun, News Agencies say.

[BethStuart]

Thank you George W. Bush and the folks who brought us Reaganomics.

[opusprime]

Time for a tax revolt.

I'm sick of paying to bailout the felon CEO's of insolvent banks and idiotic auto makers.

Let bad businesses fail, and tax the daylights out of any American company that moves jobs overseas.

Why should we to bailout corrupt businesses?

[inluvwkeitholbermann]

like the boston tea party?

[Fastcad]

This is what happens when borrow and spend Republicans take over Washington for a few years.

No more of that Reaganomics crap about cutting spending and taxes to grow out from under the national debt. It does not work.

[Mogamboguru]

...while you can add another THREE TRILLION Dollars of debt over the next few years, too: These are the still-outstanding, aggregated residual costs for George W. Bush's "N.o.n.s.e.n.s.e.-.Wa.r.s." in Iraq and Afghanistan.

See "The Tree Trillion Dollar-War" -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece

If a h.o.s.t.i.l.e., f.o.r.e.i.g.n. e.n.t.i.t.y. had EVER set a scheme in motion, to ruin the USA in the quickest and most-exhaustive way - it simply couldn't have been done in a more efficient and more-exhaustive way, than George Walker Bush did.

Therefore, George Walker Bush rightfully deserves the title -

"World's Most-efficient, Most-l.e.t.h.a.l. Master of D.e.s.a.s.t.e.r"

- and his title will remain unchallenged for a long, long time to come - perhaps, forever.

[dare i hope]

If a hostile foreign entity had ever set a scheme in motion to ruin the USA in the quickest way.... How true, wise, and _beautifully_ expressed this statement is. I wonder if future history books will not marvel at how a single administration so capably brought the world's "only superpower" to its knees in 8 years.

I remember watching the Moore documentary Fahrenheit 911 some years ago, in which he pointed out that Bush II had brought every thing he had touched into a state of ruin and left it there. It was a remarkable indictment back which went largely unheeded by large portions of the U. S. voters. I hope that people who accused Morris of grandstanding and of shrillness have had a chance to reconsider their criticisms of him.

[vjoseph]

That would entail they are capable of looking inward and admit they are wrong! You are giving them far too much credit

[FogBelter]

It's better if the US declares bankruptcy and starts from scratch. If some of our foreign investors are devastated, well, that's the price you pay for a bad investment.

I don't buy this "Your families share" garbage either. There is a small, core group of American families and corporations that commandeered the US economy generations ago ... let them face the wrath of the creditors, It's not the problem of 96% of the American people so lets stop pretending it is.

I like the approach of those who benefited from the debt, paying it back ... and that wouldn't be the American people.

[ThunderclapNewman]

That is both fooIish and counter-productive.

[FogBelter]

There is a point in the not so distant future where the US Debt will become so large that the service on the debt will overwhelm every other area of the US operating budget and the US Debt itself will be impossible to pay off ... that is just a fact.

If looking at the reality of the situation we are in is foolish and counter-productive ... so be it ... but at some point the US will default on its debt. That is a foregone conclusion.

[Chillinout]

If the US declared bankruptcy, the entire global financial system would collapse. Our debtor nations would never go for that and they would attempt to get their money back at the end of a g_un.

Welcome to Armageddon!

[FogBelter]

Chillinout, the entire global financial system is in the process of collapse already. Iceland is the canary in the coalmine. What we see there is the likely outcome for many nations. That is the main reason why we keep hearing it's going to get worse before it gets better, because the true impact of the current economic climate will take longer to reveal itself in the larger nations. There is really no opportunity for decoupling in the global economic model that was constructed, so we are all going over the falls in the barrel together.

As for leg breakers coming to the US for their money, I'd say that is doubtful. All things being equal they would still have to find a way around the efficiency of our Los Angeles class submarines.

And frankly, being raised American, I really don't feel the moral need to payoff our international creditors if it turns the American people into slaves and serfs in their own country ... but that's just me.

[FogBelter]

Actually, it also occurred to me, that maybe this is the reason the US has maintained such obscenely large defense budgets ... dwarfing all other nations ... for so long. It could be it was understood in the upper levels of American Society that this world economic crash was imminent and since the US had an unequaled influence on the world economy blow back from a collapse was likely.

Of course that gives the unseen, if they even exist, an awful lot of credit for foresight.

[HappyIdiot2008]

My suggestion is to not give you power away to money. It will destroy you. Focus on what matters to you. The rest is cake.

[ronnierayjenkins]

This is why tax cuts for the wealthiest should be made permanent. Oh, and take a look at how they spend your tax dollars too:


http://www.ronnierayjenkins.com/topics/deathinappalachia/Empty_Chairs/

[cheneyhasawarmachine]

its called 9 eleven not 9 one one.

[ThunderclapNewman]

If you want to promote your blog, buy an ad.

[inluvwkeitholbermann]

but i stiII wouldn't visit it..........