Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. Capitol. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – The federal debt has increased by more than $1 trillion so far in the month of April, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury.
At the close of business on March 31, the total federal debt was $23,686,870,812,640.08. By the close of business on April 24—the most recent day for which the Treasury has reported the numbers—the total federal debt was $24,710,629,086,944.33.
Thus, in the first 24 days of this month, the federal debt increased by $1,023,758,274,304.25.
Tellingly, all of the increase in the federal debt this month has come in the form of Treasury securities sold to the public—not in money that the Treasury has borrowed out of government trust funds (such as the Social Security trust funds) to pay for programs other than those the trust funds were set up to fund.
At the end of March, the $23,686,870,640.08 in total federal debt consisted of $17,674,771,266,474.08 in debt held by the public and $6,012,099,546,166.00 in “intragovernmental holdings”—the money the Treasury had borrowed from government trust funds.
As of the close of business on April 24, the $17,674,771,266,474.08 in debt held by the public had risen to $18,778,402,028,693.55—an increase of $1,103,630,762,219.47.
At the same time, the intragovernmental debt dropped from $6,012,099,546,166.00 to $5,932,227,058,250.78—a decline of $79,872,487,915.22.
