Debt, Trillion | featured news

We thought we’d dodged a bullet. When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that student loan debt had passed the $1 trillion mark my first thought was one of relief since our last child is graduating from college next month. Even though his tuition has almost doubled during his tenure as a student at the University of California, we were fortunate that he will be able to graduate without student loan debt. That may change in the future if he decides to complete a graduate degree, but my husband and I wiped our brows with a collective sigh of relief.

The Treasury has told lawmakers a roughly $2 trillion increase in the legal limit on U.S. federal debt was needed to ensure the government can keep borrowing through the 2012 presidential election, sources with knowledge of the discussions said.

The United States just passed a dubious milestone: Government debt surged to an all-time high, more than $14 trillion....