09.04.12

U.S. Debt To Top $16T Today; Sessions Comments On ‘Grim Landmark’

“By failing to outline any serious plan for the financial future of this country, Democrats who run the Senate and the White House have no basis on which to ask to be kept in their majority.”

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today as the U.S. gross national debt was set to surpass $16 trillion for the first time in the country’s history:

“This is a grim landmark for the United States. The gross debt of our federal government will, for the first time, surpass $16 trillion. That’s more government debt per person than Portugal, Italy, Spain, or Greece. Yet the President seems strangely unconcerned. His budget, which received zero votes in the House or Senate, would add another $66,000 in debt for every American household. And the President’s majority in the Senate, which is required by law to produce a budget plan every single year, has refused to do so for more than 1,200 days.

We are on a dramatically unsustainable path. Forty cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. Systemic factors, such as our aging population, make this the most serious financial challenge our nation has ever faced. This year will mark the fourth straight deficit in excess of a trillion dollars. In the last 3 months, more people have been permanently been added to the disability rolls than have found jobs. The IRS is mailing billions of dollars in tax credits to illegal aliens, and the USDA is partnering with Mexico to boost enrollment in food stamps. Washington is disconnected from reality.

But this crisis cannot be ducked. By failing to outline any serious plan for the financial future of this country, Democrats who run the Senate and the White House have no basis on which to ask to be kept in their majority. The nation is in desperate need of strong executive leadership to end the financial chaos, restore discipline to government, and lead us to an economic renaissance.”

NOTE: The Treasury Department’s most recent official figures show total debt outstanding at $15.9905 trillion. A Friday auction of $48.6 billion in notes with maturities between 2 and 7 years, in addition to an issuance of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), is set to push gross debt considerably over the $16 trillion threshold when the new report is published later today.