9 Trillion

So? It’s a week old. I missed it, maybe you did too.

The Washington Times: House moves to raise U.S. debt ceiling

Washington, DC, May. 3 (UPI) — The U.S. House has sent legislation to the Senate that would raise the federal debt limit to nearly $9 trillion, a $781 billion increase.

The House agreed to the increase under an automatically executing provision in the 2005 budget resolution approved by the House and Senate late last week.

The House officially sent the Senate a separate piece of debt-relief legislation increasing the limit as mandated by the self-executing provision in the budget resolution.

Gaining approval of the separate bill through the gambit avoided the need for a politically costly debate on the House floor over increasing the debt ceiling again and highlighting the inter-party split on the issue.

Fiscal conservatives within the GOP have been clamoring for greater fiscal discipline on budget matters considering the massive federal deficits, estimated to reach another record in dollar terms this year, for the second consecutive year. [emphasis mine]

How much is $9,000,000,000,000? (nevermind the interest)

One million seconds is about eleven days. One billion seconds is almost thirty-two years. One trillion seconds is 31,546 years

So if the victims of the American tax man can shell out a dollar per second for 283,914 years, our limited republic should be back in the black – as long as we stay out of any more stupid wars.

Author: Scott Horton

Scott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan and editor of The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,000 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper’s. Scott’s Twitter, YouTube, Patreon.