“$239 billion spike uses up 60% of funding OK’d on Tuesday.” Washington Times:
U.S. debt shot up $239 billion on Tuesday — the largest one-day bump in history — as the government flexed the new borrowing room it earned in this week’s debt-limit increase deal.
The debt subject to the statutory limit shot way past the old cap of $14.294 trillion to hit $14.532 trillion on Tuesday, according to the latest the Treasury Department figures, which are released on the next business day.
That increase puts the government already remarkably close to the new debt limit of $14.694, which means one day’s new borrowing ate up 60 percent of the $400 billion in space Congress granted the president this week.
Debt numbers go up and down regularly, depending on what the Treasury Department is redeeming or issuing on any day, but have been on a steep upward trend for the past decade as spending has ballooned and revenues have fluctuated.
For the past 2½ months, though, the number essentially was frozen as the government was poised to reach the borrowing limit set by law. The Treasury Department used extraordinary means to stall, but was about to run out of room on Tuesday.
With little time to spare, Congress and the White House managed to cobble together a deal to grant new borrowing authority: an initial increase of $400 billion, coupled with future increases.
The fight was so bruising that President Obama on Wednesday took his debt team out to celebrate by buying them hamburgers at Good Stuff Eatery, a well-known burger joint on Capitol Hill. The White House said it was a reward for their “nonstop” work over the past few months.
Well, I’m no economist, but the way the market is reacting, it would seem he should have taken all these hardworking civic assbangers out for Satan sandwiches, instead.
— Either that, or dumped all that money into the market to further artificially prop it up.
Dude just can’t seem to get anything right.
But no worries: he’s got a re-election plan, one that consists of going on the not-so-civil offensive against the GOP field, and Romney in particular. I honestly can’t wait until Romney tries to fire back feebly and, for his feeble efforts, is excoriated as a racist in magic underwear. By John McCain and Lindsay Graham. And maybe Mike Huckabee.
Which reminds me: if only we had a potential candidate who’d been fully vetted as is so demonstrably unafraid of Obama at this point that she openly taunts the little precious and impotent poseur….
(thanks to newrouter and geoffB)
When the “limit” has proven time and again to be an illusion, is it really any wonder that Treasury treats it as such?
Since we never actually stop at the “limit”, we need to stop referring to it as a “debt limit” and instead just call it a “debt milestone”.
Oh, man. I’m not sure I could take another round of “Grim Milestone” reporting…
Imagine you are loaning someone money, and he’s told you he’s been clean since November 2010, and you finally agree to give him money, and as soon as you pull out his six month allowance he grabs it all and spends it in one day. What caused that drop yesterday again, a dis-avowed rumor that S&P is going to downgrade after COM today because we only pretend-to-spend-less-more $2T instead of the desired pretend goal of $4T?
I like your suggestion, Dave in SoCal. From now on it’s the debt milestone, and we’re damn good at reaching that milestone time and time again.
Considering the way the republican field is folding, except for Bachmann, I think Palin will run. I didn’t think so before, but I thought Pawlenty would be more visible than he turned out to be.
This is like telling the collectors of your credit card company not to worry because you’ve just been approved for another card, and you’re going to charge their payments on that one.
It’s flat-out moronic.
run run rudolph sarah save the christmas!
O! and his cohorts on the Hill remind me of my ex-wife.
I give her $2,000 on Monday, and on Tuesday, she is sobbing at me on the phone because she needs another $1,000 so that my son has something to eat.
Go figure…
You monster! Why do you hate children, TLD?
“Squid posted on8/5 @ 3:24 pm
You monster! Why do you hate children, TLD?”
Because they are so small and helpless?
I love my son more than anything in this world, and that is probably the only reason I still talk to my ex-wife.
Nobody else will talk to her, including her own family.
It’s simply not possible to hate children. They’re so tasty in a nice stir fry.