WASHINGTON - The U.S. national debt has hit US$9 trillion for the first time.

The Treasury Department, which issues a daily accounting of the debt, said Wednesday that the debt subject to limit was at $9 trillion on Tuesday. It was $8.996 trillion on Monday.

Last month, the U.S. Congress passed and U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law an increase in the government’s borrowing ceiling to $9.815 trillion. It was the fifth debt limit increase since Bush took office in January 2001. Those increases have totalled $3.865 trillion.

The administration contends the rising debt reflects such factors as slow economic growth during the 2001 recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the cost of fighting terrorism.

Democrats place much of the blame for the exploding debt on Bush’s first-term tax cuts, which they say are tilted to the wealthy. The administration says those tax cuts helped to jump-start the economy and resulted in falling budget deficits in recent years.

The tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010. The administration and Republicans in Congress want to see them made permanent; many Democrats would like to see them revamped to provide more benefits to lower and middle-income taxpayers.

The budget deficit for the 2007 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, was $162.8 billion, the lowest in five years.

In 2004, the deficit was $413 billion, a record in dollar terms.

The national debt is the total of the annual budget deficits plus money that the government borrows from the Social Security and other government trust funds.

The total national debt is actually higher than $9 trillion because it includes borrowing by some agencies that are not covered by the congressional debt limit. That total was $9.086 trillion on Tuesday.

It took the country from George Washington until Ronald Reagan to reach the first $1 trillion in debt. ++

Source: ca.news.yahoo.com

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