$10,525,823,144,117.64 and Counting...

Hard to believe that at this point in the 2000 presidential election campaign, the debate was whether the candidates could pay off the national debt faster. Vice President Al Gore promised to do it by 2012; Governor George W. Bush of Texas pledged 2016.

Bush was elected, of course -- or at least he was selected by the Supreme Court. On January 22, 2001, the first business day of his administration, the national debt stood at $5,728,195,796,181.57, according to the Treasury Department's to-the-penny tally.

On October 29, 2008, the most recent day for which information is available, it had ballooned to $10,525,823,144,117.64. Rather than pay down the debt, Bush has overseen it grow 83.8 percent.

That is roughly twice the rate at which the nation's gross domestic product has increased, according to Labor Department statistics.

For each of the 405 weeks of the Bush administration so far, then, the nation's debt has increased by $11.8 billion.

In other terms, the debt grew almost $1.7 billion each day; $70 million an hour; $1.2 million per minute; or $19,566 for each of the 245.2 million seconds (give or take a few thousand seconds) that President Bush has been in office.

At that pace, the debt would pile up to $14.9 trillion by 2016, when he said it would be $0. But it won't be this president's problem. Bush will leave office on January 20, 2009, or roughly $140 billion dollars worth of additional debt from now.

by Mark Stein