The US Gross National Debt, that monster that keeps ballooning so much faster than our infamously slo-mo economy, just jumped by $340 billion in one day.
The debt ceiling was hit in March, and from that point forward, the Gross National Debt was stuck at about $18.15 trillion, give or take a couple of billion. But the government continued spending the money that Congress had told it to spend, though Congress also told the government not to issue more debt to pay for this spending. If this sort of debt-ceiling fight looks like a Congressional charade to the world outside the Beltway, it’s because it is a charade.
So instead of issuing new debt, the Treasury relied on ‘extraordinary measures,’ taking the money it needed from other government accounts, robbing Peter to pay Paul so to speak, and ended Fiscal 2015, on September 30, with a total Treasury debt outstanding of, well, the same $18.15 trillion.
That remained the Gross National Debt until just now. In late October, Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling and end the charade, days before the out-of-money date, as everyone knew it would. The Treasury then embarked on a flurry of activity, undoing these ‘extraordinary measures’ and going on a debt-sales binge. Now it made the accounting entry – adding $340 billion in one day to the Gross National Debt, bringing it to the new phenomenal level of $18.492 trillion.
This post was published at Wolf Street by Wolf Richter ‘ November 4, 2015.
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