force lawmakers to balance the budget each year as is required in his state. but for now it seems as if the national debt is snowballing. look at this. when president clinton left office in 2001 the debt was $5.66 trillion. it doubled during president s bush s administration to 10.7 trillion and nearly doubled again to almost $20 trillion during president barack obama s administration, $8 trillion was added during the trump administration to reach more than $27 trillion. consider this, ben, if we needed to pay off the near $30 trillion in debt that we have right now, u.s. debt clock.org said each taxpayer would owe $232,240. ben. benjamin: such a big figure it is hard to imagine them. clocking up that quickly is something else. lydia, thank you.