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The federal government’s debt could hit an unprecedented $16 trillion this week while the Republican Party is holding its national convention in Tampa, Fla.

On Monday afternoon, at the opening of the convention. the Republicans will try to draw attention to the mounting debt by unveiling a debt clock in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the convention will be held.

At an event in Waterloo, Iowa, earlier this month President Obama highlighted his own efforts to deal with the debt.

“I’ll make sure government does its part to reduce our debt and our deficits,” the president said. “We’ve cut out already a trillion dollars’ worth of spending we don’t need. And we can do more. I want to make government efficient. We’ve got to make sure that your tax dollars are being well spent. But we can’t bring down our deficit and our debt just by asking us to get rid of things that open up opportunity to Americans.

“So instead,” said Obama, “we’re asking folks like me to go back to the rates we paid under Bill Clinton–which, by the way, was a time when we created 23 million new jobs, went from deficit to surplus, and we created a whole lot of millionaires to boot.”

At the close of business on Thursday, Aug. 23, according to the U.S. Treasury, the federal government’s debt stood at $15,976,519,029,144.14. That left it $23,480,970,855.86 short of the $16 trillion mark.

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