On July 29, for the first time in history, the U.S. national debt surpassed $35 trillion and servicing it is now the second-largest item on the government’s budget, just behind the military.
Treasury Department data, released Monday afternoon, showed that the gross national debt hit an astounding $35,001,278,179,208.67, and it continues to grow.
The national debt is growing at an unprecedented pace. In January 2024 it hit $34 trillion and just four months prior to that, in September 2023, it had reached $33 trillion.
Four decades ago, America’s debt was just a tenth of that. In 1980, the national debt was $908 billion, or around $3.4 trillion in the value of today’s dollar.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations, taking office in 2017 and 2021, respectively, each added $7 trillion to the national debt.
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Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told Fox News, “This news is incredibly sobering — and incredibly unsurprising for anyone who has been following our fiscal trajectory. Just last month the Congressional Budget Office warned Americans that debt held by the public is on its way to a new record share of the economy in three years. The deficit will be nearly $2 trillion this year and nearly $3 trillion in ten years.”
“Yet despite all the risks and warning signs, these alarm bells seem to be falling on deaf ears. The bipartisan, deficit-reducing Fiscal Responsibility Act of last year was an excellent start to reducing our deficit; what we need is serious talk about how to build on that first step. Instead we are hearing an awful lot about spending and tax cuts that would make the situation worse, not better,” MacGuineas added. “We are going to have to get serious about the debt, and soon. Election years cannot be an exception for trying to prevent completely foreseeable dangers – and the debt is one of the major dangers we are facing.”
“Enough with the charade of fiscal platitudes followed by deficit-busting records. True fiscal responsibility cannot exist in a vacuum – if we want any hope of putting America back on course toward a sustainable and prosperous future, our leaders need to bridge rhetoric with action,” she said. “Pay for your new spending; pay for your new or extended tax cuts; make deals, shake hands, pass budgets. In a word: govern.”
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‘Another dubious milestone’
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said that the national debt surpassing $35 trillion was “another dubious milestone in the fiscal decline of the most powerful and prosperous nation in its history,” as described in a press release concerning the matter.
This follows comments by Jerome Powell in February on 60 Minutes when he said that the United States is “on an unsustainable fiscal path.”
“And that just means that the debt is growing faster than the economy. So, it is unsustainable. I don’t think that’s at all controversial,” he added.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is projecting that the debt held by the public will reach a record level of more than 106 percent of GDP in 2027, breaking the record set in 1946 when the United States was in the midst of a post-World War II mobilization.
From there, it is expected to continue to surge to new heights.
The debt is being fueled by persistent deficits. This year, the federal government is projected to run a $1.9 trillion budget deficit, according to the CBO; $200 billion larger than last year’s deficit.
The largest deficit the United States has ever experienced was in fiscal year 2020 when it incurred a $3.1 trillion deficit with the second largest deficit occurring in 2021 when it was $2.7 trillion. These deficits were as a result of federal spending on COVID-19 pandemic relief programs.
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By the numbers
According to UsDebtClock.org, every citizen’s share of the national debt is now $103,835 and the debt per taxpayer is $267,404.
In 1960, the federal debt to GDP ratio was 52.59 percent. By 1980, this had dropped to 34.63 percent.
However, it surged back to 56.85 percent by the turn of the millennium and now stands at an astounding 122.55 percent.
The debt to GDP ratio is a measure that compares a country’s public debt to its gross domestic product (GDP). It gives an idea of how much debt a country has relative to its economic output.
A higher ratio can indicate that a country might have trouble paying off its debts, while a lower ratio suggests a healthier economic situation.
For example, when Greece faced its severe debt crisis around 2010, its debt to GDP ratio was over 130 percent and by 2011 it had risen to around 170 percent.
This high ratio was a major factor in the country’s financial troubles and led to bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
