The National Debt Clock, that electronic billboard in New York that counts up the debt, is being removed to make way for a new building. You didn’t really want to know what the debt is, anyway, did you?
But because the national debt is still rising, a new billboard-sized digital clock will be reappearing in a few weeks one block north at 1133 Sixth Ave. “It’ll be going back up in a month,” said Douglas Durst, president of the Durst Organization, which looks after the clock.
Durst’s late father, real-estate magnate Seymour Durst, installed the clock in 1989 when the debt was $2.7 trillion. When the clock returns in May, the debt will be more than $7 trillion.
In fact, the debt is now rising so quickly that the last seven numbers of the new clock will be moving too quickly to be read, Durst said.
“The numbers are there to be helpful in reminding people and because my father thought it necessary to tell people how big the debt actually is,” Douglas said.
The last time the clock went dark was in September 2000 – because the national debt was actually falling. It was plugged back in on July 2002 when the debt again began to rise.
You might take note of the dates in that last paragraph and ask yourself what administrations were in power. Just a comment, that’s all.
