US national debt hits US$16 trillion
The US Treasury Department said that the national debt has topped US$16 trillion (€12.7 trillion), the result of chronic government deficits that have poured more than US$50,000 (€39,746) worth of red ink onto federal ledgers for every man, woman and child in the United States.
The news was greeted with a round of press releases from Barack Obama's Republican rivals, who used the grim-but-expected news to criticise the president for the government's fiscal performance over his 3½ years in office.
