But For What? In 2022, Biden Increased Debt $11,374 Per Worker
By TERENCE P. JEFFREY
President Joe Biden, working with a Democrat-controlled Congress, increased the federal debt in 2022 by approximately $11,374 per every American worker.
On December 31, 2021, according to the U.S. Treasury, the federal debt was $29,617,214,856,051.75. By December 30, 2022, it was $31,419,689,421,557.90. So, in calendar year 2022, the federal debt increased by $1,802,474,565,506.15.
As of November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 158,470,000 people employed in this country. That means that the $1,802,474,565,506.15 increase in the federal debt in calendar 2022 equaled approximately $11,374 for each of those 158,470,000 employed people.
Believe or not, that was actually a little less than the federal debt increased in calendar year 2021, almost all of which was presided over by the Biden administration, which entered office on January 20, 2021.
From December 31, 2020, to December 31, 2021, the federal debt rose from $27,747,797,947,667.77 to $29,617,214,856,051.75 — a one-year increase of $1,869,416,908,383.98. In November 2021, there were 155,324,000 people employed in the United States. So, the one-year per-worker increase in the debt that year was approximately $12,036.
The cumulative debt increase of $3,671,891,473,890.13 over the last two years equals $23,170.89 for each of the 158,470,000 people who were employed in this country as of November.
Did you get your money’s worth?
Will the government ever pay this money back?
The answers are no and no.
In the first three months of this fiscal year — October through December — the biggest recipient of federal spending has been the Department of Health and Human Services, which is essentially a welfare agency. So far, according to the Daily Treasury Statement, the government has spent a total of $410,745,000,000 on HHS programs.
Back in October through December 2009, before Obamacare was enacted, the federal government spent only $208,487,000,000 on HHS (which equals $287,423,760,000 in constant November 2022 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator).
The $418,649,000 in HHS spending in the first three months of this fiscal year, which is itemized in the Daily Treasury Statement for December 30, included $146,004,000 in grants to the states for Medicaid — or, more precisely, socialized medicine.
The federal government also spent $53,615,000,000 on the Department of Education in the first three months of this fiscal year.
Meanwhile, another $40,371,000,000 has gone to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, while an additional $4,155,000,000 went to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Another sum of $17,408,000,000 went to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Yet, at the same time, the government only spent $1,930,000,000 on Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
That means that while migrants were surging to our southern border, believing they would have a better chance of illegally entering our country with Biden in the White House, the current administration was spending more than 20 times as much money on food stamps as it was on CBP.
It was spending more than 27 times as much on a federal DOE — which involves itself in an area of American life that is not the responsibility of the federal government — than it was on CBP.
Did a group of terrorists cross our southern border last month? We have no way of knowing.
How many drug dealers and how many pounds of lethal illegal drugs came across that border last month? Again, we have no way of knowing.
In the one month of December alone, according to the Daily Treasury Statement, the federal government spent $15,632,000,000 on the DOE.
In that one month it also spent $13,786,000,000 on food stamps.
But it spent only $726,000,000 on CBP.
It is obvious that Biden is not serious about securing the southern border. But the newly elected Republican-majority House of Representatives should not let him get away with this.
In an era when the federal government is spending massive amounts of money on activities that are not true constitutional responsibilities of the federal government, it is absurd that that government does not engage in the modest expenditures needed to do something as fundamental as securing our border.
The next time the Republican House passes an omnibus spending bill it should include language to completely fund the barriers and manpower needed to actually secure our southern border. It should leave the Senate leadership and Biden only one choice: Close the border or close the government.
Legal immigration is a great American tradition and should continue. But illegal immigration is wrong and needs to be stopped.
(Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor-in-chief of CNNews.com. To find out more about him, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.)
