Will US debt increase by $2 trillion in 2009?

The US national debt is expected to jump by as much as $2 trillion this year, thus putting more pressure on the American economy, a leading daily here said.

At present, the country's debt stands at nearly $10.7 trillion. Of this $3 trillion is held by foreign investors , with China ($652.9 billion) and Japan ($585.5 billion) being the top two creditors.

The soaring national debt would saddle taxpayers with huge new interest payments for years to come, the Washington Post said.

"Some analysts also worry that foreign investors, the largest United States creditors, may prove unable to absorb the skyrocketing debt, undermining confidence in the US as the bedrock of the global financial system," the Post wrote.

The newspaper said economists from across the political spectrum have endorsed the idea of going deeper into debt to combat the worst ever economic crisis since great depression of last century.

They argue that even with an increase of $2 trillion national debt, the United States is in relatively good financial shape as compared to other industrial nations.

Japan's public debt equalled 182% of its GDP in 2007 and that of Germany was 65%, the newspaper said referring to a forthcoming report by Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress.
Even a $2 trillion increase would push the US debt to about 53 of the overall economy. This is "only a few percentage points above where it was in the early 1990s," Lilly was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Source: Agencies