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11 Trillion, Barack Obama. Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, China, GDP, National Dept, Treasury DepartmentNational Dept Hits 11 Trillion; Sucker
11 Trillion, Barack Obama. Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, China, GDP, National Dept, Treasury Department
The Federal Government’s flood of red ink hit another high-water mark as the Treasury Department quietly reported today that the National Debt hit $11-trillion for the first time ever.
To be exact, the Debt now stands at $11,033,157,578,669.78. Divide it by the U.S. population and it comes up to over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child among us.
And the government is running up mountains of debt with increasing speed. It took just over 5 ½ months for Uncle Sam to go another trillion dollars deeper in debt since hitting $10-trillion last September 30th. It’s the fastest jump in U.S. history.
The hundreds of billions of dollars being spent as part of the federal bailout of the financial markets is a leading factor in the rapid increase. Over $400-billion in debt has been accrued in the 57 days since President Obama took office.
And the federal budget he unveiled last month projects even faster increases in the National Debt. It’ll hit $12.7-trillion by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. The Administration’s four year estimate shows that by the end of September 2012, the Debt will have soared to $16.2-trillion – which amounts to nearly 100% of the projected Gross Domestic Product that year.
The U.S. is running up so much debt so quickly, some investors are worried. Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who says his country has about a trillion dollars invested in U.S. Treasury notes, said he wanted a guarantee.
President Obama said Wen’s got nothing to worry about.
“Not just the Chinese government, but every investor, can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the United States,” he said on Saturday.
That’s because the U.S. government’s power to tax stands behind all of its debt. If Uncle Sam ever needs a bailout, then as now, taxpayers get nailed.
It took the U.S. government 191 years – from 1791 until 1982 – to run up its first trillion dollars in debt. The second and third trillions got on the scoreboard much more quickly – each in just four years.
By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the National Debt stood at $5.7-trillion. He ran up more debt faster than nearly all of his predecessors combined: just under $4.9-trillion.
The National Debt stood at $10.6-trillon on the day Barack Obama took office. But if his budget projections are accurate, he’ll run up nearly as much government debt in four years as President Bush did in eight.
Former AIG Head Hank Greenberg on CNBC With Maria Bartiromo
AIG, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, Citibank, CNBC, Cramer+Stewart, Credit Default Swaps, Deep Capture, Derivatives, Dick Fuld, Gradient Analytics, Hedge Funds, Henry Paulson, Jim Cramer, Jon Stewart, Lehman Brothers, Maria Bartiromo, Mortgage Crisis, Overstock, Patrick ByrneMore Republicans For Obama's Cabinet
Barack Obama, Ken Salazar, Mary Schapiro, Repuublicans, Robert Gates, SEC, Vilsack
President-elect Barack Obama has picked GOP Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois to be his nominee for transportation secretary, two sources told CNN on Wednesday.
Two Democratic sources also said Obama will tap Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Schapiro is CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the largest nongovernment regulator for all securities firms doing business with the U.S. public. She is a former SEC commissioner and served as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1994 during the Clinton Administration.
Obama will formally announce his choice of LaHood, a seven-term congressman from Peoria, at a press conference in Chicago on Thursday morning, the sources said.
LaHood is well-respected by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
One of LaHood’s closest friends in Congress, fellow Illinois Republican Tim Johnson, said LaHood “has the ability to work both sides of the aisle well” and called him “an extraordinarily talented legislator.”
Obama has so far chosen one other Republican for his Cabinet. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will stay on in the Obama administration.
Earlier on Wednesday, Obama announced former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as his choice for agriculture secretary and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as his choice for secretary of the interior.
“Together they will serve as guardians of the American landscape on which the health of our economy and the well-being of our families so heavily depend,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago.
Vilsack was a high-profile supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton during the presidential primaries after he briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination.
Vilsack has championed the development of ethanol, an alternative energy, in Iowa — something that coincides with Obama’s vision for an energy-independent future, and something he can promote from the Department of Agriculture.
Vilsack, who dropped out of the presidential race in February 2007, is the fourth former presidential rival to join Obama’s team.
Vice president-elect Joe Biden; Hillary Clinton, Obama’s pick for secretary of state; and Bill Richardson, Obama’s pick for secretary of commerce, also sought the Democratic presidential nomination.
“With the appointments I announced earlier in the week, and with those I am announcing today, I am confident that we have the team we need to make the rural agenda America’s agenda, to create millions of new green jobs, to free our nation from its dependence on oil and to help preserve this planet for our children,” Obama said. 
Watch Obama name Salazar and Vilsack to his team »
Salazar, Obama’s choice for secretary of the interior, has focused on public land and energy resource issues as a first-term senator from Colorado. He is the second Latino to be named to Obama’s Cabinet.
Obama said Wednesday he was confident that under Salazar, the Interior Department would become more proactive instead of “sitting back, waiting for whoever has most access in Washington to extract what they want.”
Salazar is a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and has developed a reputation as a strong advocate of reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil.
A fifth-generation Coloradan, Salazar was elected to the Senate in 2004 and quickly made a name for himself in immigration reform.
He was a key member of a bipartisan Senate group that put together the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which would have beefed up border security and increased the number of Border Patrol agents, but also would have created a guest worker program.
That program would have allowed migrants to work temporarily in the Untied States. The most controversial aspect of the bill was the creation of a pathway to legalization and eventual citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country, an idea that critics dismissed as “amnesty.” The bill failed to make it through Congress.
Salazar’s appointment would not jeopardize the balance of power in the Senate. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a fellow Democrat, would name his replacement. iReport.com: Chatting with Salazar
Also on Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino announced that Obama will meet for a second time with President Bush. The meeting also will include the three living former presidents.
President Bush will be host at a lunch with Obama and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton on January 7, Perino said.
Obama proposed the meeting with the former presidents to Bush when the two met in the Oval Office on November 10, two sources said.
The high-powered meeting is another sign of how closely the Obama and Bush teams have been working to try to make sure the first post-9/11 transfer of power goes smoothly.
“It’s been unbelievably cooperative,” said one Democratic official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the conversations between Bush and Obama.
The New York Herald Sun 