Former President Obama is not only leaving the U.S. government with a health care mess, but he leaves the country in deeper debt that when he took office eight years ago. According to data release by the U.S. Treasury, the outstanding national debt is now totaled at $19,944 trillion, which is an increase of $9.318 trillion.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 124,248,000 people in the United States with full-time jobs in December. The total federal debt of $19,961,467,137,973 equals approximately $160,658 for each one of those workers. The $9,334,590,089,060.56 that the debt has increased under Obama equals $75,128.69 for each one of those works,” writes CNS News.
To put this in a simpler perspective, the debt increased by 86%.
So how did this happen?
Medicare/Medicaid was the most expensive culprit and added $1.1 trillion to the national debt, then Social Security cost $900 billion. While, only $595 billion was spent on defense and war.
Not to mention, the increase in regulations were extremely expensive and only halted economic growth.
“The Obama administration put out 3,069 regulations, adding nearly $900 billion in costs to the economy. Obama’s main focuses were fighting global warming and immigration. Obama’s rules added nearly 572,000 pages to the Federal Register, including a whopping 97,110 pages in 2016 alone — an all-time record,” writes The Daily Caller.
Obama’s predecessor, former President George W. Bush left office with an additional $4.9 trillion after his eight years, from the $5.7 trillion he inherited from Bill Clinton. This is half of the debt acquired at the end of Obama’s term.
Many of those in favor of economic growth voted for President Trump. In David Horowitz’ recent book, “The Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America,” he discusses the new president’s 100-day strategy which will boost the U.S. economy.
“If you just say, ‘well we’re for free trade and we’re not going to look at the deals that we make’ — that’s not a good idea,” said Horowitz. “We’ve had an anti-business president now for eight years who doesn’t take a hard-nosed attitude towards these deals. Trump is going to get better deals for us, which is still free trade.”
Change was definitely needed because if we were to have continued on the path Obama was on, the debt would have only increased.
“Absent policy changes, the federal government’s fiscal path is unsustainable and that the debt-to-GDP ratio would surpass its historical high of 106 percent within 15 to 25 years,” according to the Government Accountability Office.