With the end of the government shutdown, we also saw a hike in the debt ceiling. For the last few years we have been witness to several different debt ceiling discussions and whether or not we should continue to raise our debt limit year after year. Well after this most recent hike, it seems clear that the U.S. government is behaving no better than a teenage girl at the mall with a limitless credit card.
In just the last week, since Congress reached the deal to suspend the government’s debt ceiling, the Treasury department has managed to spend another $375 billion.
Before the most recent deal, the U.S. debt was fixed at $16.69 trillion. But now that the Treasury has a suspended debt limit through February 7, 2014, the department can basically spend as much money as they want.
How much debt could the government rack up though? Well apparently, if we keep on spending at the same rate we have in the last week, the new number for U.S. public debt would be $22.70 trillion. We just managed to reach over $17 trillion this week. That means spending over $5 trillion in the next 4 months!
What more needs to be said in order to make the administration understand that spending is out of control? Their current spending habits are simply at levels that cannot be sustained. Is another government shutdown in order in February? How else can we make our president realize that we must revise our spending and make cuts where necessary in order to avoid these debt limits.