US debt has reached US$13 trillion for the first time in history, the US Treasury Department said on Wednesday, stoking a political furor over government spending.
Amid vast government outlays designed to end the economic crisis, the debt reached a record US$13,050,826,460,886.97 on Tuesday, according to official figures.
The debt has increased by about US$1.6 trillion in the last year and more than doubled in the last 10 years. It now stands at just under 90 percent of annual GDP.
Against this stark backdrop, tackling debt has become a hot political issue in Washington, with Democrats and Republicans trading barbs about who is to blame.
Earlier on Wednesday, US President Barack Obama assailed Republicans for leaving him with the type of spiraling short-term deficits that fuel longer-term debt.
The US government suffered its 19th consecutive month of budget deficit in April.
“By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over US$1 trillion and projected deficits of US$8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthy, and a worthy but expensive prescription drug program that wasn’t paid for,” Obama told an audience in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“I always find it interesting that the same people who participated in these decisions are the ones who now charge our administration with fiscal irresponsibility,” he said.
“Despite all their current moralizing about the need to curb spending, this is the same crowd who took the record US$237 billion surplus that [former] president [Bill] Clinton left them and turned it into a record US$1.3 trillion deficit,” he said.
However, Republicans have lambasted Obama for expanding government spending since he came to office through a massive reform of healthcare.
“Thirteen is certainly an unlucky number, especially for our children and grandchildren who will be left to dig out of trillions of dollars worth of debt,” Republican Senator Judd Gregg said.
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