According to daily figures released by the Treasury Department, the U.S. national debt has topped $22 trillion for the first time in history.
The debt has ballooned by more than $2 trillion in the two years since President Trump took office in January 2017, when the debt stood at $19.9 trillion. It surpassed $21 trillion for the first time in history in March 2018. Under the Obama administration, the national debt grew from $10.6 trillion to $19.9 trillion, drawing criticism from Republicans. In an interview with the Washington Post in 2016, President Trump vowed to eliminate the national debt “over a period of eight years.”
However the ratio of debt-to-GDP has also increased, something that’s unusual in a strong economy. In June 2018, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report that the level of debt as a share of GDP had reached its highest levels since World War II.
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