I have an ongoing theme over the history of this blog: how much does the United States owe, and what's the credit card limit up to now?

According to the U.S. Government, the current debt stands at $9.111 Trillion. It's odd typing such a large number. I'd rather prefer saying $9,111 Billion. A billion dollars is a heck of a lot of money, and we as normal humans can't even properly fathom a trillion. It's beyond comprehension.

And the last I heard the statutory debt limit was $8.97 Trillion. So they much have increased it without me noticing - and they did increase it early in October. How come this didn't make the news? A quick Google search tells me the current limit is $9.815 Trillion.

I guess in an election year, they want to give themselves a lot of room to spend so that they don't have to debate the level of debt on the nightly news.