US national debt exceeds $16 trillion under Obama

The US national debt has swelled past USD 16 trillion, giving cause to Republican’s criticism of President Barack Obama just as the National Democratic Convention (NDC) begins.

When Obama took office in 2009, the US debt stood at USD 10.6 trillion, but the figure has soared despite his pledge to cut it by half by 2012.

Immediately after the US Treasury announced the figure, Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney released a one-minute video highlighting Obama’s pledge to halve the debt by the end of his term in office.

Back in 2008 and during his first presidential campaign, Obama had slammed the USD 4-trillion rise in national debt under his predecessor George W. Bush as “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”

“If we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery… at some point people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession,” Obama said.

House Speaker John Boehner described the news as “another sad reminder” of Obama’s broken promise to cut spending.

“Instead of working in a bipartisan way to fulfill his promise, the president went on a ‘stimulus’-fueled spending binge that stuck every American man, woman and child with a $50,000 share of this $16 trillion national debt,” Boehner said in a statement.