Serving debt is the largest cost of Washington’s debt crisis; America currently spends $2.4 billion in daily interest fees alone. The debt and spending simply cannot keep up with what America is bringing in. The federal govt spent $658 billion on interest fees in 2023, a 38% jump from the $476 billion in servicing debt in 2022. That’s 2.4% of the entire national GDP spent on interest expenditures alone.
The Congressional Budget Office believes the US defense expenditures will reach $870 billion this year to put into perspective how wasteful these interest payments have become. The CBO also believes interest costs will spike to $892 billion by year-end, rising to $12.9 trillion by 2034. The previous high came in during 1996 at $468 billion.
“Interest is projected this year to be the second-largest federal program — it means your tax dollars are going to interest instead of going to everything else,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan think tank. So these offices believe the US will accumulate, because they won’t try to pay it off, a 20.3% in federal revenue costs for this debt by 2025.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation broke the projected cost post 2032 to be $38,600 per American citizen. Not only is the US unable to pay this debt but those in government continue to spend TRILLIONS of dollars on programs that have not benefitted the people. This is one of the reasons that the US government is looking at a complete overhaul by the time we reach 2032 for it can not leave it for the next generation without consequences.