This number won't surprise economic beat reporters, but it gives the Republican Party another short-term talking point: the national debt has eclipsed $11 trillion for the first time and is about 1.04 trillion higher than when President Obama took office. (By the way: the GOP talking point accusing Obama of doubling the debt or doing something else with it aren't trouble... George W. Bush's term saw the debt increase by more than $4 trillion. And the President's budgeting is a bit more honest than President Bush's: it includes war spending.)  By the way #2: during his press briefing today, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama "has made a very clear commitment not to raise taxes on middle class families, period."  Is there any scenario wherein this could change? "The president has been clear, very clear."  And "Let me be precise the President's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year."  So -- just to be clear -- that's not the same thing as saying that under no circumstances would the president raise these taxes.