By Stephen Dinan /The Washington Times

U.S. debt shot up $239 billion on Tuesday — the largest one-day bump in history — as the government flexed the new borrowing room it earned in this week’s debt-limit increase deal.

The debt subject to the statutory limit shot way past the old limit of $14.294 trillion to hit $14.532 trillion, according to the latest the Treasury Department figures, which are released on the next business day.

That increase puts the government already remarkably close to the new debt limit of $14.694, which means one day’s new borrowing ate up 60 percent of the $400 billion in new space Congress granted the president this week.

Debt numbers go up and down regularly, depending on what the Treasury Department is redeeming or issuing on any day, but has been on a steep upward trend for the last decade as spending has ballooned and revenues have fluctuated.

For the last two and a half months, though, the number was essentially frozen as the government was poised to hit the borrowing limit set in law. The Treasury Department used extraordinary means to stall, but was about to run out of room on Tuesday.

With little time to spare, Congress and the White House managed to cobble together a deal to grant new borrowing authority: an initial increase of $400 billion, coupled with future increases.

The previous one-day record increase was $186 billion, set on June 30, 2009.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC.

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