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U.S. Debt Reaches 100 Percent of Country's GDP

The U.S. debt surpassed 100 percent of gross domestic product after the government's debt ceiling was lifted, Treasury figures showed Wednesday, according to AFP.

The debt, which had been in somewhat of a holding pattern over the past several weeks, rose $238 billion after President Obama signed the debt-ceiling deal into law Tuesday to avoid the country's first-ever default.

The package is designed to carve $2.4 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. But in the near term, it granted Washington an increase in its borrowing authority worth the same amount.

With that authority, the public debt has climbed to $14.58 trillion, putting it just over the $14.53 trillion size of the country's economy in 2010.