It's weird, looking at the increase in the National Debt. If you're not really careful, doing your research, you can make a mistake.
I wanted to look at the amount of money that the Government has had to borrow, during the last month and a half. So I went to the Web-site of the Bureau of the Public Debt. I looked at the debt as it stood, at the beginning of the fiscal year (October 1) and compared it with the debt as it stands, today.
The problem is that October 1 was on a week-end. Debt figures are only calculated at the end of business days. There was no calculation for the debt, as it stood on October 1. So I looked at the debt,as it stood on October 2. And, since the debt hasn't been calculated for today, yet, I had to compare October 2 with November 9. The amount of borrowing, therefore, that happened between those dates was about $55 billion. That amount of borrowing works out to a projection that the debt will increase by $440 billion, during the current year.
"Wow," I thought. "We're not spending money as fast as we were, before. That's great!"
Then, by accident, I happened to look at the debt figures for the Friday before the end of the fiscal year (September 29). Boy, did I get a shock. Turns out, the Government borrowed $42 billion over the weekend between the end of the old fiscal year and the beginning of the new! If I were to consider that $42 billion to be part of the current year (instead of part of the year that just ended), the figures tell a different story. Instead of spending $55 billion in a month and a half, the Government has spent $97 billion. If that rate of borrowing continues, we will have to borrow $776 billion, this year. That's more than we borrowed, last year!!!
You already know what the impact is, of last year's deficit. I had to shut down most of the Executive Branch. What will have to happen, now, with an even larger deficit? What else will have to be shut down?
Debt is a destroyer. This nation has got to get out of debt.