National Debt Nearly Doubles under Obama

President Obama is expected to sign into law a two-year budget deal this week.

According to The Washington Times, the deal with Congress will suspend the debt limit to allow the Treasury to borrow about $1.5 trillion. By the end of Obama’s presidency, the national debt will be nearing $20 trillion.

In 2009, when Obama took office, the national debt was $10.6 trillion.

“Congress and the president have just agreed to undo one of the only successful fiscal restraint mechanisms in a generation,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union. “The progress on reducing spending and the deficit has just become much more problematic.”

The Obama administration has said that $112 billion of the spending increases is funded through cuts in other places.

“This agreement will strengthen the middle class by investing in education, job training, and basic research,” Mr. Obama said. “It will keep us safe by investing in our national security. It protects our seniors by avoiding harmful cuts to Medicare and Social Security. It locks in two years of funding and should help break the cycle of shutdowns and manufactured crises that have harmed our economy.”

But critics disagree.

“The Boehner-Obama spending agreement would allow for unlimited borrowing by the Treasury until March 2017,” said Paul Winfree, director of economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation. “This deal piles on billions of dollars to the national debt by increasing spending over the next three years and then not paying for it for a decade — with half of the offsets not occurring until 2025.”

Photo courtesy: bluediamondgallery.com

Publication date: November 2, 2015