On Monday, the total public outstanding debt hit $20 trillion for the first time in history after seeing several months of decline.
For the first several months of President Trump’s administration, the national debt saw a steady decline, dropping approximately $100 billion from the day Trump took office until last week.
However, figures released on Monday by the U.S. Treasury for Friday, September 8, show the national debt exploded by more than $317 billion overnight.
The huge jump in the deficit came after President Trump signed into law on Friday a bill that temporarily suspended the $19.84 trillion debt ceiling so that federal aid could be provided for victims of recent hurricanes.
After the $317,589,836,297 increase, the total public debt outstanding now sits at a record of $20,162,176,797,904 – the first time the U.S. national debt has ever crossed the $20 trillion mark.
Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, told the Daily Wire the initial decline in national debt was attributable to the U.S. Treasury – not necessarily to policies set by the Trump administration.
“I think that data partly reflects the ‘extraordinary measures’ taken by the Treasury to skirt the debt limit,” said Edwards. “But certainly, the federal government continues to fallen further into debt because we continue to run $500 B annual deficits.”
In addition to the $317 billion increase in the U.S. national debt last week, the U.S. government is projected to run at a $702 billion deficit for 2017 – nearly $100 billion higher than initial budget projections, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
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Source: The Daily Wire
