I recently saw a post on Facebook touting the fact that only Presidents Obama and Clinton have actually lowered the federal deficit. Many people think the term deficit means debt.
While the deficit has come down, meaning the amount the government spends each year in excess of its revenue is less, the national debt keeps rising.
The time for a big hooray is when there is an excess in revenue and the debt begins to decline.
For the record here is the total federal debt as of the dates shown.
12/31/2008 $10,699,804,864,612.13
04/01/2015 $18,152,046,284,380.77
Just think of the interest we waste on this debt and what will happen when interest rates rise and we are still borrowing half a trillion dollars more each year. At only 1.5% the interest on that debt is $270 billion a year. That is a lot of “free” college and pre-school, but instead we give a big junk of it to China and wealthy people around the world.
Here are the actual numbers from the Treasury Department: (some payments go to the Social Security Trust)
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