US national debt hits $16 trillion

WASHINGTON: The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the national debt has topped $16 trillion, the result of chronic government deficits that have poured more than $50,000 worth of red ink onto federal ledgers for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The news was greeted with a round of press releases from Barack Obama's Republican rivals, who used the grim-but-expected news to criticize the president for the government's fiscal performance over his 3 1/2 years in office. Obama has presided over four straight years of trillion dollar-plus deficits after inheriting a weak economy from his predecessor, George W. Bush.

"We can no longer push off the tough decisions until tomorrow," said No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor. "It's time to address the serious fiscal challenges we face and stop spending money we don't have." Last summer, Cantor dropped out of a set of budget talks hosted by Vice President Joe Biden, citing the insistence of the White House on tax increases to help close deficits that require the government to borrow 33 cents of every dollar it spends.

The spiraling debt means that lawmakers and the eventual winner of the White House in November will have to pass a law early next year to raise the government's borrowing cap from the current ceiling of $16.39 trillion. Passing such legislation last year proved enormously difficult and the nation's credit rating suffered.

First, however, lawmakers will try during a post-election lame duck session to renew Bush-era tax cuts and head off a round of forced budget austerity as automatic budget cuts are scheduled in January to slam both the Pentagon and domestic programs. Those cuts were required by another failed set of budget talks last fall by a bipartisan "super-committee."

The debt topped the $16 trillion mark on Friday.

Last year's prolonged impasse between the Republican-dominated House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House contributed to a move by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's to lower America's AAA bond rating for the first time in the country's history, nudging it down a notch to AA+ for long-term securities.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promises sharp spending cuts and a balanced budget by 2020 if he wins the White House, but has provided little detail about how that might be accomplished.