Less than two months after Joe Biden signed a controversial debt ceiling bill into law, the national debt of the United States has skyrocketed by over $1 trillion.
As reported by Fox News, the Treasury Department recorded the national debt as being approximately $31.47 trillion on June 2nd. As of July 6th, the debt is over $32.47 trillion. The debt had remained stagnant at the June total because Congress initially could not agree on a debt ceiling deal, thus forbidding the federal government from borrowing any more money.
The deal that was ultimately signed by Biden on June 3rd essentially removed any debt ceiling until 2025. At the same time, the deal required small budget cuts in 2024 in order to offset the continued borrowing, which reached levels as high as $350 billion in a single day and saw the national debt cross $32 trillion in just under two weeks after the bill was signed.
Overall, the national debt has risen by about $4.7 trillion since Biden first took power in January of 2021, and is expected to continue rising at a pace of at least $1 trillion per year. The government has already added at least $1.16 trillion to the debt in the year 2023.
Although government spending was expected to fall somewhat after the end of the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic, spending levels have still remained high. In 2020, federal spending exceeded $2 trillion after the government spent at least $6.5 trillion, up from $4.4 trillion the prior year. In 2023, the government has already spent $6.3 trillion overall, slightly less than the amount spent in 2020 but still significantly higher than what was spent in 2019.