According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. National Debt has topped $16 trillion. Here's a visual courtesy of USDebtClock.org.
So what exactly does this mean?
Just under $5 trillion of the national debt is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund and federal pension systems. A little more than $11 trillion is owed to foreign and domestic investors and the Federal Reserve, which buys up treasuries in order to drag down interest rates through quantitative easing.
It's the first day of the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama has added $5 trillion to the debt since taking office just four years ago and he has no plans to get the debt clock ticking backward. The Republican National Convention had two debt clocks ticking inside the forum where Mitt Romney spoke last week when he vowed to pay down the debt. The Democratic National Convention in Bank of America Stadium, doesn't have debt clocks in it and President Obama hasn't provided the American people with a plan, should he win a second term, about how to pay the now $16 trillion.
The RNC is already out with an ad slamming Obama for his reckless spending, reminding him of his own promise to cut the debt, not increase it.
National debt the day Barack Obama was inaugurated:
Today:
Now, let's break this down to an individual and daily level based on numbers from the Treasury Department. During President Obama's administration, the share of each citizen's national debt burden has increased from $17,454 to $51,874. On average, President Obama has added $ 4,073,237,142 to the national debt every day since taking office and has added Obama $1 trillion to the national debt every 245 Days. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, $16 trillion is more than the value of all of the goods and services produced in the U.S. last year. Even PolitiFact, a left-leaning fact checking outlet, dubbed Obama the "undisputed debt king of the last five presidents."
The Romney campaign has issued a response: we're not better off.
“President Obama has left Americans worse off than when he took office, with chronic unemployment and declining incomes. But it’s not just this generation that’s paying the price – the next generation has been saddled with enormous debt because of President Obama’s policies. As president, Mitt Romney will take immediate action to cut spending and stop passing our bills on to our children.” – Ryan Williams, Romney Campaign Spokesman
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