Mike JohnsonThe federal debt goes up by a lot every 20 minutes, and if you look at averages, the increase over that period is more than four times higher than what Johnson said.is first address as the House of Representatives’ presiding officer.Johnson said from the speaker’s chair Oct. 25There is no practical way to determine how much the debt rose during the literal 20-minute period when Johnson was speaking.
The debt can be measured two ways: debt held by the public and gross federal debt, which includes public debt plus money that one part of the government owes another part of the government. Over the past year, from Sept. 25, 2022, to Sept. 24, 2023, the public debt rose by $2.18 trillion. Over the same period, the gross federal debt rose by about $2.42 trillion.
Ultimately, Johnson is right that the debt goes up by a lot every 20 minutes, but, using averages, it appears he understated the amount by a factor of four.Vivek Ramaswamy“When I came into office, Iran had $70 billion in foreign exchange reserves. … By the time I left, they had nothing. They were broke.”