The US government is on the verge of announcing its $16 trillion debt, a figure that is 104% of the nation’s gross domestic product. That’s right folks, the US’s debt has officially overtaken its economy.

The concerning figure shows that the the nation’s debt has more than tripled over the last two presidencies and shows no signs of stopping. It marked the fourth consecutive year with a $1 trillion budget shortfall, which doesn’t really come as a surprise when one considers that debt grows by roughly $2 million per minute, or about $,.5 billion each day.

“This is a grim landmark for the United States. Yet the president seems strangely unconcerned,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of the Senate Budget Committee.

“The national debt is certainly a ticking time bomb. There’s no question that if we don’t do something about it, it’s going off,” said Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, an NGO promoting a balanced budget. “We’re spending about $200 billion on interest now. That’s much more than we’re spending on operations in Afghanistan, more than we’re spending on Medicaid.”

While Obama has his skeptics, one of his advisers, David Axelrod offered the following, rather vague, statement on the President’s behalf.

You can’t balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy.

The news comes at a rather crucial time as it is an election year and candidates will no doubt use the information to sway opinion and votes, after all there’s nothing like a looming financial crisis to stoke your electoral fire.

[Source: RT]