(CNSNews.com) - Under the spending deals cut by House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio), the federal government’s debt has climbed $3,968,445,855,460.28, according to debt numbers published by the U.S. Treasury.
That works out to an increase in the debt of $26,627.43 per each of the 149,036,000 people who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, had a full- or part-time job in the United States as of August 2015.
When the first spending deal made by Speaker Boehner took effect on March 4, 2011, the total federal debt was $95,162.43 per the 149,036,000 workers who had jobs as of this August. It now equals $121,789.86 for each of those workers.
The $3,968,445,855,460.28 that the federal debt has increased under spending deals consummated by Boehner during his speakership is more debt than the federal government accumulated during the first 101 Congresses, which ran from 1789 into 1991. 49 House speakers presided over those first 101 Congresses.
The total debt of the federal government first surpassed $3,968,445,855,460.28 (the amount accumulated under Boehner’s spending deals) in June 1992.
When Boehner became speaker on Jan. 6, 2011, the government was operating under a continuing resolution enacted in December 2010 by the outgoing Democrat-majority Congress. That CR expired on March 4, 2011. All federal appropriations bills funding the government since then have been approved by the Republican-majority Congress Boehner has led.
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
At the close of business on March 4, 2011, the day that the CR that the Democrat-majority Congress enacted in December 2010 expired, the total debt of the federal government was $14,182,627,184,881.03, according to the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. At the close of business on Sept. 23, 2015, the total debt was $18,151,073,040,341.31.
From March 4, 2011 through Sept. 23, 2015, the debt increased $3,968,445,855,460.28
Between March 4, 2011, when Boehner’s Republican House Majority assumed authority over federal spending and Sept. 23, 2015, 1,662 days elapsed. The $3,968,445,855,460.28 increase in the federal debt during that time equaled about $2,387,753,222.30 in new federal debt per day.
The means the government has borrowed approximately an additional $16.02 per worker per day.
The debt has increased $3,968,445,855,460.28 under Boehner’s spending deals despite the fact that since March 13 of this year, as CNSNews.com has reported, the Treasury has been taking “extraordinary measures” to keep the portion of the debt subject to a legal limit set by Congress frozen approximately $25 million below that limit.
Despite the $3,968,445,855,460.28 increase in the debt under spending bills approved by the House Boehner has served as speaker, he is not the speaker who has presided over the greatest increase in the debt.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi is.
On Feb. 15, 2007, President George W. Bush signed the first continuing resolution enacted during her speakership. On that day, the federal debt was $8,738,700,362,432.03. By March 4, 2011, when the last CR passed under Pelosi expired, the debt was $14,182,627,184,881.03—an increase of $5,443,926,822,449.
When Rep. Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) became speaker on Jan. 6, 1999, the entire debt the United States had accumulated since the founding of the country was only $5,615,428,551,461.33.