US govt hits record on selling long-term debt in 2019

Washington, Dec 28
The US government has hit an annual record for selling long-term debt in 2019, it was reported.

The total of notes and bonds sold by the US government, with maturities ranging from two to 30 years, rose to $2.55 trillion in 2019 after the Treasury Department on Thursday auctioned its latest seven-year notes, Xinhua news agency quoted The Wall Street Journal as saying in a report on Friday.

It represented a 26 per cent increase from 2017, when Congress approved President Donald Trump administration's $1.5 trillion tax-cut package, the report said.

The amount of government debt is expected to rise, eventually pushing up the size of government debt auctions in coming years, as the US is forecast to run trillion-dollar budget deficits for the next decade, according to the report.

The US national debt now stands at more than $23 trillion.

The US federal debt held by the public is projected to grow from 78 per cent of gross domestic product in 2019 to 92 per cent in 2029, the largest share since 1947 and more than twice the 50-year average, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.