by Calculated Risk on 9/29/2008 05:27:00 PM

Several years ago I predicted that the National Debt would reach $10 trillion by the time President Bush left office. For a short period (thanks to the housing bubble), it looked like the deficit would be less than I projected.

Back in March, with the housing bust starting to hit government revenues, it started looking like the $10 trillion projection had a chance.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the daily National Debt from TreasuryDirect). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Here is an update: The National debt is $9.889 trillion as of Sept 26, 2008. That leaves the debt just over $110 billion short of my projection with almost 4 months to go.

Over the last month, from August 26th to Sept 26th, the National Debt has increased $254 billion as the recession has started to significantly impact government revenues. It looks like $10 trillion will be passed very soon.

Also, the National Debt has increased a stunning $895 billion over the last 12 months (from Sept 26, 2007 to Sept 26, 2008). Shocking.