Ground Report

On September 19, 2014 Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado asked for and was granted permission to address the United States House of Representatives for one minute regarding our unconscionable national debt.

The national debt of the United States is the amount owed by the federal government of the United States. The measure of the public debt is the value of the outstanding Treasury securities that have been issued by the Treasury. The gross national debt consists of two components:
1) Debt held by the public, such as Treasury securities held by investors outside the federal government, including those held by individuals, corporations, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments.
2) Debt held by government accounts or intragovernmental debt, such as non-marketable Treasury securities held in accounts administered by the federal government that are owed to program beneficiaries, such as the Social Security Trust Fund. Debt held by government accounts represents the cumulative surpluses, including interest earnings, of these accounts that have been invested in Treasury securities.

In general, debt held by the public increases as a result of government spending and decreases as a result of government tax or other receipts, which fluctuate in the course of the fiscal year, and in practice Treasury securities are not issued or redeemed on a day-by-day basis.

The aggregate, gross amount that Treasury can borrow is limited by the United States debt ceiling.

The following is Rep. Coffman’s comments:

“Mr. Speaker, on January 20, 2009, the day President Obama took office, the national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08. Today, it is $17,770,878,224,353.80. We’ve added $7,144,001,175,440.72 to our debt in 5 years. This is over $6.9 trillion in debt our nation, our economy, and our children could have avoided with a balanced budget amendment.”

Source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/