Last year, satirical website, The Babylon Bee, ran this hilarious headline: “Republicans Announce Plan To Pretend To Be Fiscally Conservative Again The Moment A Democrat Takes Office.” The site could run this article every year and it would still be relevant.
Despite lambasting former President Barack Obama on the ballooning debt and outrageous budget deficit, the Republicans have adopted a similar style of policymaking.
According to the Treasury Department, the federal government’s borrowing will exceed $1 trillion for the second consecutive year.
It confirmed on Monday that it will issue $814 billion in net marketable debt in the second half of this year. This means the total debt issuance of 2019 will be $1.23 trillion.
Here is the full statement:
The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its current estimates of privately-held net marketable borrowing[1] for July – September 2019 and October – December 2019 quarters:
- During the July – September 2019 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $433 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $350 billion. The borrowing estimate is $274 billion higher than announced in April 2019. The increase in borrowing is primarily driven by changes in cash balance assumptions.[2]
- During the October – December 2019 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $381 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-December cash balance of $410 billion.
During the April – June 2019 quarter, Treasury borrowed $40 billion in privately-held net marketable debt and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $264 billion. In April 2019, Treasury estimated privately-held net marketable borrowing of $30 billion and assumed an end-of-June cash balance of $270 billion.2 The change in borrowing resulted from lower net cash flows partially offset by the lower end-of-quarter cash balance.
Additional financing details relating to Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding will be released at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 31, 2019.
Ouch.
If they were not so gung ho about spending the nation to oblivion, the Democrats would be wise to pounce on this reckless spending. But that is not going to happen during the debates.
Even during the second round of the debates, the debt was only referenced once (vaguely) by former Governor John Hickenlooper, who cited how China owns 25 percent of the national debt.
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.
“China owns 25 percent of the national debt.”
China does not own 25% of US debt, that would be 5.5 Trillion Dollars. China owns 27% of foreign owned debt. Just 1.11 Trillion Dollars. Much closer to 5% of the US 22 Trillion Dollars in National debt. But of course if you say or print 5% no one would pay any attention to you.