UPDATE US Government Exceeds Debt Ceiling [ NOPE ]

"In a shocking development, the Treasury Department website is openly stating that as of January 24, 2006 our national debt stood at $8,185.3 billion and on January 26th at $8,190.5 billion. Yet the US national debt ‘ceiling’, the maximum amount of debt the US government may hold at any one time, stands at $8,184 billion – a full $5.5 billion less. Although called upon by John Snow, Congress has not yet passed an expansion of the debt ceiling and so the US government is now operating in technical default ( Financial Sense 1/27/06)"

Also, check out this post over at HOUSING BUBBLE? Much bigger than just a housing bubble!

Bureau of Public Debt

This was posted on Angrybear

EDIT / CLARIFICATION: The US is not in default. (Vorpal noted this in the comments) Not all of the National Debt counts against the Debt Ceiling and, in addition, the Treasury Secretary can play some accounting games as Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin did in '96 ... from SF Chronicle:

... in his Dec. 29 letter, Snow said that while the debt limit "will be reached in mid-February 2006," he could delay default for a month using "available prudent and legal actions."

These actions, MacGuineas said, would include putting IOUs instead of cash into federal retirement accounts -- a tactic that Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin first employed in 1996, when Republican lawmakers balked at raising a debt ceiling then at $4.9 trillion.

Back then, some lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives called for Rubin's impeachment, saying his action usurped the powers of Congress. But in 2002, when the Bush administration was about to hit the $5.95 trillion debt limit it inherited from President Bill Clinton, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill employed Rubin's tactic to buy time until Congress raised the debt ceiling to $6.4 trillion in June.

I found this amusing, but the US is not in default.