Republicans Plan To Make Debt Focal Point of Their Convention
The Republicans fired up not one, but two debt clocks earlier today during an abbreviated session of their national convention. One clock will show how much debt the United States has accumulated over the course of the four day convention, while the other debt clock will show how much the United States currently owes in total.
Let's break out the calculators for a second. According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office), the United States is expected to post a $1.1 trillion deficit for the 2012 fiscal year.
Divide $1.1 trillion by 365 days and you are left with $3,013,698,630.14 (a little over $3 billion). This works out to $125 million per hour, $2.08 million per minute and $34,722 per second - this is how much the national debt of the country is currently increasing.
So, over the course of the 4 day Republican convention, the United States will add over $12 billion to their already staggering debt total.
As mentioned, the Republicans also have a second debt clock that will show the current debt load of the United States. In case you were wondering, that number is currently $15,974,809,707,529.13, or a little under $16 trillion.
This means that every man, woman and child in the United States currently owes $52,579 as their share of the national debt load.
Of the nearly $16 trillion US national debt load, $1.16 trillion is owed to China, $1.105 trillion is owed to Japan and $260.9 billion is owed to "oil exporters" such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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The Republicans are going to attack President Obama on the debt and deficit - that much is clear. The United States has posted four straight trillion dollar deficits (2009, $1.416 trillion, 2010, $1.294 trillion, 2011, $1.299 trillion, 2012, $1.1 trillion*) and will likely post another in the 2013 fiscal year.
The big question is - can Republicans convince enough voters that they have the solution to get the economy back on track and tame the debt?
*estimated
Filed under: General Knowledge
