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I put together a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that shows the national debt, year by year, showing the political party of the President, Senate, and House. It shows the year, debt, and percent change, with a summation by party. It is available for online viewing and download from Google Docs.

The National Debt Clock, launched in 1989 when the nation's debt was less than $3 trillion, cannot keep pace with the growing national debt, now at more than $10 trillion. VIDEO

Hamilton's big idea is still with us today. John Steele Gordon recalls the history of the debt On Sept. 18, 1789, the new secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, entered into negotiations for a temporary loan with the Bank of New York and the Bank of North America—the only two banks in the country at that time. The following February, the deal went through and the government borrowed $19,608.81. It was the start of the American national debt under the new Constitution. The United States was not exactly a good credit risk at that time, so the government was, perhaps,...

Dramatic Debt by: Irene Warren, September 04, 2008 The film I.O.U.S.A. premiered in home-town theatres across America in August, but is now available online for viewing, makes no bones about it: America is in financial crisis. Director Patrick Creadon and Former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and others make it perfectly clear: If we don’t do something soon, America could find itself shipwrecked and drowning in an ocean of debt. Creadon and Walker take you on a rollercoaster ride across the country, while explaining America’s fiscal policies and financial debt and how it could impact our personal pocketbooks right here,...

If "An Inconvenient Truth" sounded the alarm on global warming, "I.O.U.S.A.," a new documentary opening in theaters Friday, hopes to do the same for the rising federal deficit. Backed by Blackstone Group Chairman Peter Peterson, "I.O.U.S.A." follows former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and the Concord Coalition's Robert Bixby on a "fiscal wake-up tour" across America. In the movie, which is co-written by "Empire of Debt" co-author Addison Wiggin and directed by "Wordplay" filmmaker Patrick Creadon, Messrs. Walker and Bixby argue that unless the government alters its policies and spending habits, the U.S. will be in for a serious financial...

In a bizarre effort to balance California's budget, state officials listed San Diego on EBay yesterday. Gov. Schwarzenegger said he was initially reluctant to authorize the sale, but decided "nobody will really miss the city anyway. It's not like the Padres or Chargers have ever won a World Series or Super Bowl." Although San Diego is the nation's eighth-largest city, it has often endured second-class treatment in its home state. The Los Angeles Times, for example, regularly refers to "Southern California" as a region that doesn't extend below Orange County. Even the Border Patrol has essentially written off the city,...

WASHINGTON -- The competing tax plans laid out by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain would both add trillions of dollars to the national debt and could add to the tax system's complexity, a nonpartisan tax research group concluded Wednesday in a newly released report. Both campaigns have asserted that their plans to continue many Bush-era tax cuts and offer new reductions would aid the economy without requiring massive new spending. But the Washington-based Tax Policy Center warned that under either candidate, "the debt would likely continue to rise as it has over the past eight years." Obama's plan --...

Representatives of several foreign government-run investment funds will testify on Capitol Hill for the first time Wednesday as Congress steps up its monitoring of the funds' activities. Executives of so-called sovereign wealth funds based in Norway and Singapore are scheduled to testify at a joint hearing by two House Financial Services subcommittees. The hearing will begin at 2:30 p.m. EST. The rapid growth in the size of sovereign wealth funds, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, and their increasing investment in the United States have grabbed lawmakers' attention. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. are urging the funds...

Global Poverty Act of 2007 - Directs the President, through the Secretary of State, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day.

LAURENS - Republican White House hopeful Fred Thompson said Wednesday that the United State's spending on programs like Medicare and welfare puts the country on a course for the same financial oblivion that brought down the Soviet Union during the Cold War. "We're doing it in a different way," Thompson said during a radio interview in response to a question about President Ronald Reagan's strategy of outspending the Soviet Union and whether the U.S. was now on the same course. "The bottom line could be the same." Recurring spending demands for programs that pay for health care, welfare and social...

Anti-war presidential candidate Ron Paul says his campaign is about "restoring the vanishing American dream." And he is criticizing what he calls "the cartel controlling the banking and monetary system" in the United States. Fresh off his third-quarter fundraising surprise of $5 million, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the libertarian "revolution" he has started is growing across America. Paul told conservative activists at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" in Washington, DC, that the conference would be more aptly called the "Defending the Vanishing American Dream Summit." The Texas congressman said his Republican rivals often talk about a "flat...

WASHINGTON, 23 (UPI) -- The Bush administration plans to increase its 2008 military operations funding request by $50 billion, Pentagon officials said in Washington. Much of the new request -- which would bring the total 2008 budget for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere to nearly $200 billion -- will go to refurbish and purchase new military equipment such as mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, The New York Times reported. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will present the request at a Wednesday Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, the Pentagon officials said Saturday. Though the budget increase could sharpen partisan divisions over the...

“The most serious threat to the United States,” U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has warned, “is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility.” Walker, the federal government’s chief auditor, has been traveling across the country like a modern Paul Revere encouraging ordinary Americans to focus on the long-term fiscal threat we face. True, Walker acknowledges, the economy is vibrant for now: Job creation is strong, inflation low, incomes up. But he warns of “a fiscal cancer” that “could have catastrophic consequences for our country” -- the imminent retirement of 78 million Baby...

Congressional Democrats are poised to take the politically uncomfortable but unavoidable step of raising again the federal debt ceiling, using the budget process to increase the nation’s credit limit even though they had hammered Republicans for making the same move in previous years. Amid growing anticipation of the 2008 budget proposals from the chairmen who will navigate the path to conference, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), the ticking clock of the federal debt limit has gone largely unnoticed. But the current ceiling of about $9 trillion is likely to be hit this fall, according to the...

Phil Maymin, the Libertarian candidate in the Fourth Congressional District, doesn’t want voters to flush away their ballots this November, calling a vote for a Democrat or a Republican a “waste.” “If you’re unhappy with the course the country has been taking for the past 10 years, you have to realize that the Democrats and Republicans have made this mess,” he said at a meeting with reporters and editors from Hersam Acorn Newspapers Thursday, September 7. Mr. Maymin, a Greenwich hedge fund manager, is running against Republican incumbent Rep. Christopher Shays, and Diane Farrell, the Democratic challenger. Just added to...

Thanks to Congressman Jeff Flake's 19 anti-pork amendments, we now have every House member on record regarding their positions on earmarks. Before now, House members have been able to avoid scrutiny because their pork was co-mingled with other projects and tucked into the dark corners of big spending bills. Or they were able to withstand the scrutiny because they were attacked as a whole chamber and not directly attacked themselves. But because of Flake's amendments, they were recently forced to cast up-or-down votes on specific projects. They could no longer deflect attention. Below is a summary scorecard of how they...

Exposing an Imposter! Bush is a Sham Conservative! by Ryan Setliff Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy by Bruce Bartlett. Hardcover: 320 pages. (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2006) Amazon Price: $16.38. An Imposter, a Pretend Conservative!! Bush came into office riding on a tide of popular backlash directed at the scandal-plagued Clinton administration. Bush even went so far as to present himself as the consummate Reaganite. Nonetheless, G.W. Bush’s last few years of leadership from foreign policy to domestic issues have been uninspiring and characterized by a profound increase of government spending, record...

Excerpt - NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Taxpayers owe more than $500,000 per household for financial promises made by government, mostly to cover the cost of retirement benefits for baby boomers, USA Today reported, citing its own analysis. Federal, state and local governments have added nearly $10 trillion to taxpayer liabilities in the past two years, bringing the total of government's unfunded obligations to an unprecedented $57.8 trillion, said the report late Wednesday. That is the equivalent of $510,678 for every household in the U.S., said USA Today. ~ snip ~

The future of Social Security is indeed going to be a burden on future generations, but what about the national debt? Maybe it's time to start vetoing spending bills full of unnecessary earmarks. See the cartoon: http://cartoons.blog.com

Fed chairman says a steep decline in greenback wouldn't necessarily disrupt financial markets. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chronic U.S. trade gap need not fuel a "precipitous" decline in the dollar, but the economy could handle it if it did, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday. "Although U.S. trade deficits cannot continue to widen forever, these deficits need not engender a precipitous decline in the dollar, nor should such a decline, were it to occur, necessarily disrupt financial markets, production or employment," Bernanke said in a letter to Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat. The letter, which was released by...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes. The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature. The measure allows the government to pay for the war in Iraq and finance Medicare and other big federal programs without raising taxes. It passed hours before the House was expected to approve another $91 billion to fund the...

The Senate has approved a bill permitting the government to borrow another $781 billion, bringing the limit on the national debt to nearly $9 trillion.

Washington (AP) - Senate Republicans cast symbolic campaign-season votes Wednesday to increase spending for border and port security - one day before a likely vote to increase the national debt by an additional $781 billion, to $9 trillion. The uncomfortable vote to increase the debt is the fourth since President Bush (website - news - bio) took office, and it comes as Republicans struggle to pass a budget plan for next year. GOP leaders have already dropped Bush's plans for tax cuts and curbs to Medicare, but now his cap on appropriated spending is in danger as well. After the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Commerce Department reported on March 14, 2006 that the 2005 current account deficit was $804.9 billion, up from $668.1 billion in 2004. The current account is the broadest measure of the U.S. trade balance. In addition to trade in goods and services, it includes income received from U.S. investments abroad less payments to foreigners on their investments in the United States. In the fourth quarter, the current account deficit was $224.9 billion, up from $185.4 billion in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, the current account deficit exceeded 7...

The U.S. trade and investment deficit with the rest of the world ballooned to $805 billion last year, for the first time reflecting a spiral of rapidly growing debt service costs caused by rising interest rates. The surge in the external deficit, which is larger than any other nation's at 6.4 percent of economic output, comes as the United States is spurning foreign takeovers of ports and oil companies and raising doubts about its ability to keep financing such unprecedented levels of debt, analysts say. "It is certainly something to worry about," said Martin Feldstein, an economics professor at Harvard...

Maybe the national debt clock was retired too soon. Between 1989 and 2000, the electronic display near New York's Times Square tracked the rise of the nation's red ink until it reached $5.7 trillion. When it shut down, the federal budget was running a surplus. Today, the national debt totals $8.3 trillion, a level that could force Congress this week to raise the debt ceiling for the fourth time in George W. Bush's presidency. The pre-vote debate may be tinged by election-year rhetoric, but the underlying issue goes beyond partisan politics. The rising debt tally is a reminder, economists say,...

Treasury Secretary John Snow urged Congress to set aside partisan bickering and raise the US national debt ceiling this week, or face a disastrous cash crunch for the federal government. In a speech here to a conference of regional bankers, Snow said it would be inconceivable for Congress not to pass legislation on the debt limit before it heads into a recess at the end of this week. "I am urging members of Congress in the strongest possible terms to resist coupling an increase in the debt ceiling with other issues," Snow said. "Rather, they should vote to raise the...

Today our national debt stands at $8.2 trillion, which represents about $26,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Interestingly, the legal debt limit is only $8.18 trillion, a figure that was reached a few weeks ago. This means the Treasury department must ask Congress to raise the debt limit very soon, most likely as part of a larger bill so it can be hidden from the American people. Raising the debt ceiling is nothing new. Congress raised it many times over the last 15 years, despite the supposed “surpluses” of the Clinton years. Those single-year surpluses were based...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. I am surprised at the recent outrage regarding the sale of American port operations to a United Arab Emirates' company, President Bush's proposal allowing foreign ownership of domestic airlines, etc. After all, we have enjoyed more than 25 years of continuous and growing trade deficits. And why not, if foreigners are willing to ship us more goods than we ship them, good for us as it enables us to consume more than we as a nation produce. Unfortunately, there is just one problem, the only reason foreigners would continue shipping us...

An ongoing debate among economists about America's surging "twin deficits" in foreign trade and the federal budget and the concomitant decline in personal saving, is the focus of the winter issue of a new quarterly public-policy journal, the American Interest. Allen Sinai, chief global economist and president of Decision Economics Inc., expressed considerable concern about the trends in the twin deficits. Philip Merrill, who served in the Bush administration for two and a half years as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, offered a remarkably sanguine view. According to economic theory and simple arithmetic, the twin deficits...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. There was bad news for the White House and the Republican Party in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes conducted Feb. 6-8. By a 61-35 percent margin, respondents said that the country was on the "wrong track," and by 57-40 percent disapproved of the way President George W. Bush is running the country. Those surveyed also disapproved by a margin of 61-35 of how the Republican-controlled Congress was handling its duties, with a plurality of 47 percent saying things would be better if the Democrats were in charge. With Congressional...

In the days after the release of President Bush's budget for fiscal 2007, liberal special interests and the Bush Administration will have something in common: both will claim that it outlines deep cuts in spending. Don't believe it. The budget for fiscal 2007 (which will be begin October 1) proposes aggregate federal spending that is 49% higher than in 2001 (the last Clinton budget). This rampant spending growth during the Bush years is the cause of our current large federal budget deficits (which had been vanquished in the late 1990s). The President's budget projects a deficit in 2007 of $354...

The United States is addicted to oil, President Bush warned Americans last week in his State of the Union address. But what's likely to hurt us more in the long run--our addiction to oil or our addiction to debt? We can cut back on oil consumption. Even if we stop borrowing tomorrow, however, our outstanding debt still must be repaid or refinanced. And those bills will come due in the next 20 years, as 78 million Baby Boomers reach retirement age. In theory, at least, they're going to take more from the economy than they contribute, stretching already leveraged resources....

Haven't seen it mentioned in the news yet...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Repeatedly, I have been asked: Will Ben Bernanke fight inflation as effectively as Alan Greenspan? That is the wrong question. The Fed has responsibility for both sustaining growth and containing inflation. It is easy to do one but not both. The Bundesbank and European Central Bank have demonstrated achieving modest inflation and 10 percent unemployment is easy, whereas Alan Greenspan has shown containing inflation and keeping unemployment at five percent or less is doable. Unfortunately, Mr. Bernanke will have fewer tools than did Mr. Greenspan or his predecessor, Paul Volker. Both...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. "I'm just back from China recently and pressed them on [the currency] issue. And found that they are putting in place mechanisms to allow the currency to have greater flexibility....So I think we're on the right course." ~ Treasury Secretary John Snow, January 5, 2006 "...Zhu Baoliang, chief economist at the State Information Center, a think tank within the state planning agency, said Beijing could not afford to let the yuan's value rise by much because it needs to keep exports strong both to absorb excess factory output and to contain...

FINDLAY, Ohio -- The federal government is reaping a $1.1 million windfall from the estate of an Ohio woman. But the money comes with specific instructions. Margaret Taylor's will said the government has to use her fortune to help pay down the national debt. A spokesman for the Treasury Department said it may be their largest donation ever. Taylor died in November at age 98. She told her family that she planned to use her money to help people, but didn't reveal her plans. The executor of her will said he tried to talk Taylor out of giving her money...

The U.S. government is poised to exceed its charge card limit and may have to quit paying its bills unless Congress raises the national debt limit soon. That's what Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a recent letter to Congress, warning that unless the current $8.2 trillion debt ceiling is raised by mid-March, "we will be unable to continue to finance government operations." In the last 50 years, the United States has raised its debt ceiling more than 70 times, and budget watchers say lawmakers have become expert at delaying or disguising this politically perilous task. "The antics they go...

In 2006, look for a falling dollar and dropping bond prices, along with rising inflation and interest rates, as growing economies in China and India assert themselves. You don't have to invest in China or India to be affected by the dramatic growth of their economies. And you don't have to be a politician to worry about trade and budget deficits. They're all interconnected, and they will all affect your pocketbook in 2006 and beyond. Yes, the growth of the global economy has created tremendous opportunities for trade and investment -- and helped keep our economy growing at a healthy...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned lawmakers on Thursday that a legally set limit on the government's ability to borrow will be hit in mid-February and urged Congress to raise it quickly. Failure to do so potentially risks throwing the country into its first default in history, Snow warned in what has become virtually an annual rite as U.S. borrowing needs spiral. "The administration now projects that the statutory debt limit, currently $8.184 trillion, will be reached in mid-February 2006," Snow said in a letter to 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate released...

NEW YORK - It's an addiction. Every day, the United States sucks in more and more of it from abroad, just to keep the nation going. We speak, of course, about foreign money. At our current rate of trade and budget deficits, foreigners need to purchase $2billion in dollar-denominated assets each day just to keep the dollar stable, said Axel Merk, who manages $60million at Merk Investments and runs the Merk Hard Currency Fund. Over half the national debt is now financed by foreigners, according to Roger Ibbotson, chairman of the financial consulting firm Ibbotson Associates in Chicago and a...

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, every American’s prorated share of the funded national debt now amounts to more than $166,000. Treasury officials are now in the process of matching Social Security numbers and addresses so invoices can be mailed. To help spread the load of transactions, the invoices will be sent out on each taxpayer’s birthday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The October budget deficit was a smaller-than-expected $47.2 billion, down from $57.3 billion in October 2004, due to strong receipts, a Treasury Department report showed Thursday. Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting a $55 billion budget gap. The Congressional Budget Office last week estimated the deficit at about $50 billion. October receipts were $149 billion, the highest since $157 billion in October 2001, the Treasury Department said in its monthly statement. Outlays were $197 billion, the highest since $205 billion in the same month in 2003. The budget deficit for all of fiscal 2005 came in at...

Current Month 10/20/2005 $8,009,635,518,716.50

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Ever eager to observe and command, government officials like to record their countrymen's economic dealings with people abroad. They create "balances of payments" which are to help them evaluate and manage economic relations. Last year the American balance posted extraordinary deficits of some $668 billion, or more than six percent of gross national product. This year it is estimated to exceed $700 billion. In any other country a deficit of just three percent would sound the alarm and could trigger a sudden flight of capital and a crash of the national currency....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. For those worried about the dangers of huge, soaring U.S. economic imbalances, it was somewhat encouraging: France's finance minister claimed that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told him that the United States has "lost control" of the federal budget deficit. Now maybe we'll hear some realism from Greenspan about the even larger trade deficit. Certainly, the numbers justify this concern. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the budget deficit will hit 2.7 percent of gross domestic product this year – counting the "off-budget" Social Security surplus. Take Social Security out, as any...

I, Heretic By: Nick Danger · Section: Miscellania Here I am going to spout heresy. I am going to argue that the fiscal policies being followed by President George W. Bush represent a breakthrough in conservative — yes, conservative — thinking. They represent good policy; and even better strategy. I will suggest that President Bush understands money better than any President we have ever had. He understands it better than most economists. He understands it better than our illustrious pundits. President Bush understands money the way a financier understands money. He sees it as a force or a power that...

TOKYO - Japan's government debt, already the highest in the industrialized world, rose 1.7 percent to a record high of 795.8 trillion yen ($7.1 trillion) at the end of June, according to a report released by the Finance Ministry. ADVERTISEMENT The latest figure marked an increase of 14.3 trillion yen from the end of March , the ministry said Thursday. The amount is equivalent to about 6.24 million yen ($55,900) for every Japanese. Japan has relied on government bond issues to make up for falling tax revenues, turning into one of the world's most indebted countries.

TOKYO - Japan's government debt, already the highest in the industrialized world, rose 1.7 percent to a record high of 795.8 trillion yen ($7.1 trillion) at the end of June, according to a report released by the Finance Ministry. ADVERTISEMENT The latest figure marked an increase of 14.3 trillion yen from the end of March , the ministry said Thursday. The amount is equivalent to about 6.24 million yen ($55,900) for every Japanese. Japan has relied on government bond issues to make up for falling tax revenues, turning into one of the world's most indebted countries. Japan's public debt burden...

How America's piggiest state can help get New Orleans back on its feet "You know, in this country, we have a great system that says, when something like this happens to one part of the country, the rest of the country is going to come together and help," Mike Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told Chris Matthews in an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball this week. How true, Mr. Brown! In the spirit of FEMA, I'd like to do what political commentators do best—volunteer some of my countrymen to make the necessary sacrifices. We can start with a...