[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17206]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE NATIONAL DEBT

  (Mr. MATHESON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Speaker, since the start of the current 
administration in January of 2001, the national debt has increased by 
$1,639,772,884,702.
  According to the Web site for the Bureau of the Public Debt at the 
U.S. Department of the Treasury, yesterday the Nation's total 
outstanding, privately held debt was $4,228,551,437,783.
  Foreign holdings of U.S. privately held debt now total $1.75 
trillion. This is an increase of $740 billion since January of 2001, 
and it is 41 percent of all privately held U.S. debt.
  For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, the fiscal health 
of our country deserves far better care and attention from the White 
House and from this Congress.

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