Tag: debt

U.S. Treasury pays $3 billion a day in interest on national debt nearing $39 trillion mark

The U.S. Treasury has paid $628 billion in net interest this year to service its borrowing, according to the the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The latest monthly budget update on the national debt and its interest burden, shared on May 8, breaks down the government’s income and outgoings for the fiscal year so far, which began in October.

The CBO breakdown shows the deficit so far this year is actually smaller than it was for the same period a year prior. However, every day the Treasury is still forking out billions of dollars to manage existing service payments to lenders.

The report demonstrates the government’s largest outlays: $953 billion so far this year for Social Security benefits, $588 billion for Medicare, and $409 billion for Medicaid. Net interest on public debt is a larger figure than both Medicare and Medicaid, totaling $628 billion for the seven months between October and April.

On those numbers, for the 212 days since October, the Treasury’s interest payments have averaged at just shy of $3 billion a day—$2.96 billion to be precise.

The interest payment figure is rising with every budget update that passes, the CBO said: “Outlays for net interest on the public debt rose by $41 billion (or 7%) because the debt was larger than it was in the first seven months of fiscal year 2025 and because of higher long-term interest rates. Declines in short-term interest rates partially mitigated the overall rise in interest payments.”

The overall debt picture has marginally improved: The April update shows government income totaled $3.3 trillion for the fiscal year so far, up from $3.1 trillion for October to April of 2025. Outlays have also increased, from $4.2 trillion to $4.3 trillion, meaning the deficit for FY26 stands at $955 billion, which is $94 billion less than for the same period in FY25.

A significant driver in this change was the revenue generated by Trump’s tariff agenda, intended to rebalance trade deals with every nation on the planet.

While geopolitical fallout and a level of market volatility followed, the income generated by the policy was significant: A 220% uplift in duties revenue compared to the previous year. In FY25 (between October and April), customs duties totaled $59 billion, but for the same period this year, the government has raked in $190 billion.

It’s the reason Wharton Professor Joao Gomes previously argued that the initially unpopular tariffs are here to stay—even if the Democrats win the next election. “The truth is governments need revenues and once you see the amount of revenue the tariffs bring, I think Democrats will be addicted to them as Republicans—or are as likely to be,” he told Wharton Business Daily last year.

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Europe Explores Wealth Taxes, Capital Taxes, and Exit Taxes

The European Commission has now openly published a two-volume study examining “net wealth taxes,” “capital taxes,” and perhaps most alarming of all, “exit taxes.” They are no longer hiding the agenda behind slogans about “fairness” or “solidarity.” The report openly discusses how to tax wealth, how to monitor ownership, how to close compliance gaps, and how to prevent capital from escaping. This is precisely what I have warned was coming as governments across Europe enter the terminal phase of a sovereign debt crisis.

The study was commissioned by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union and examines wealth taxation systems across Europe and beyond, including France, Germany, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, and Colombia. The report specifically focuses on recurring wealth taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gains taxes, and exit taxes designed to capture wealth before individuals relocate outside the jurisdiction.

The timing is everything. Europe’s economy is collapsing into what our Economic Confidence Model has projected would become a prolonged depressionary period into 2028. Manufacturing across Germany has been imploding, energy prices remain structurally elevated because of the self-inflicted sanctions war and Net Zero agenda, and capital has been fleeing Europe into the United States for years. The EU knows this. They see the money leaving. They understand that confidence in European governments is collapsing, and instead of reforming policy, they are moving toward containment.

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US National Debt Exceeds Size of Economy for 1st Time Since End of World War II – Reports

The US national debt exceeded the size of the country’s economy at the end of March for the first time since the end of World War II, Fox Business reported, citing data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The Bureau reportedly estimated on Thursday that the national debt held by public amounted to $31.27 trillion as of March 31. GDP at that time was estimated at $31.22 trillion, meaning the US national debt exceeded 100% of the country’s economy.

Last time such a situation was observed in 1946, when the percentage of public debt to GDP was 106%, the report read.

On Thursday, Fitch Ratings suggested that US national debt, under its baseline scenario, would exceed 120% of GDP no later than 2027. The US public debt-to-GDP ratio was 116.6% in 2025, will reach 119.3% this year, and will increase to 122.2% in 2027, the agency estimated.

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Arizona Democratic Party Nearing $1 Million In Debt

The Arizona Democratic Party (ADP) is heading into the second quarter of this pivotal election year with a negative cash balance exceeding $720,000.

Their latest campaign finance report, filed last week, reflected total-to-date expenditures that nearly tripled their income: over $2.8 million compared to $1 million. 

For this first period, ADP’s expenditures did fall below their income: about $67,500 compared to $151,500. 

ADP experienced much stronger fundraising in the first quarter of 2022, the last midterm election year. The party’s reported income was over $370,000 and expenditures were $146,000 in that first quarter.

A stark difference was evident between ADP’s campaign finances for the last two off-years as well.

The party’s campaign finance report data for all of 2025 reflected income just below $857,000, but expenditures totaling over $2.7 million. In the first quarter of 2025, the party raised only about $210,000 and spent nearly $360,000.

Comparatively, by the end of 2023, ADP had $1.5 million more in income than expenditures. In the first quarter of 2023, ADP raised nearly $1 million and expended about $227,000.

Some among ADP leadership did warn last summer that the party would go broke by the end of the year. The party has dealt with publicized infighting for about a year.

Unlike other transfers listed, shared expenses with the Navajo County Democratic Committee (NCDC) were categorized as an “unlimited transfer” routing arrangement for ADP funds. 

NCDC has a surplus of nearly $1.6 million. Since the beginning of last year, NCDC has sent over $61,000 to ADP. 

In that same time period ADP sent back over $107,000 to NCDC, or $46,000 more than NCDC has sent. Their cycle to date reported a cash flow between the two totaling nearly $150,000. 

Navajo County accounted for ADP’s second-largest expenditure last year. 

AZ Free News contacted ADP about the state of their finances and their fiscal arrangement with NCDC. ADP didn’t respond to our inquiry.

Apart from NCDC, ADP’s number-one expenditure last year by far was $1.7 million last August to the Copper State Values PAC, established and run by Gov. Katie Hobbs’ campaign manager Nicole DeMont and treasurer Dacey Montoya. Since DeMont set up the PAC in December 2024, its primary function has appeared to be a funding arm for the Hobbs reelection campaign. 

The PAC sent back $94,500 a few months later, last December. 

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We spend (borrow) $22 billion every week to pay interest on National Debt — just the freaking interest. National Debt grows by $6 billion every day.

The problem with an increasing debt burden is that it costs more to maintain it: This is precisely the issue with which the U.S. Treasury is wrangling at present. As total U.S. national debt ticks over $39 trillion, the interest payments on that value are eye-watering: $529 billion for the first six months of the current fiscal year.

A new budget update from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released yesterday highlights that the government—according to preliminary estimates—paid out the near $530 billion between October 2025, when the fiscal year starts, and March 2026. This equates to more than $88 billion in interest payments a month, or more than $22 billion a week.

That means the service payments on public debt are roughly equal to spending for the same period on both the Department of Defense’s military budget and the Department of Education. These two outlays contribute costs of $461 billion and $70 billion respectively.

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Degrees of Seriousness on the National Debt

We hit an ignominious milestone recently when the national debt crossed $39 trillion. Naturally, regular citizens have chimed in about what’s to blame, who’s at fault, what can be done, or whether it even matters.

The discussion usually takes one or more of the following shapes.

If you’re new to the conversation, just dipping your toes in for the first time, you might think we can simply cut defense spending, or eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Considering how many military bases we have around the world, that’s a legit angle.

Likewise, when you factor in the Pentagon’s numerous failed audits and run-of-the-mill household items running into the thousands of dollars, you could kill two birds with one stone.

We’re just scratching the surface here, though.

If you’re somewhat serious, in addition to those, you would do well to point out discretionary spending. Those are monies that Congress approves annually, such as farm subsidies, spending on education and housing, etc. The nearly trillion-dollar defense budget is part of it.

However, all told, such spending barely makes up a quarter of the overall budget—if that.

If you’re more serious, you could include all the aforementioned items, plus the programs on autopilot: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They are the three biggest items in the federal budget, eating up over half.

Interest on the debt, another expenditure on autopilot, recently overtook defense as the fourth largest item—but cannot be tackled directly. Only by addressing all the rest will that one be pushed down in the process.

Social Security’s financial health has been feeling the strain of an ever-growing number of beneficiaries and a declining birthrate.

By some estimates, what is in the Social Security Trust Fund will be insufficient to pay benefits within the next decade.

Regarding health insurance, its very structure is handicapped by its third-party payer nature. When consumers don’t know the actual price of the service they’re receiving, they’re less judicious in their spending.

Most Americans choose a low-deductible insurance plan where, after a visit or two to the doctor, all they pay is a $20 or $50 copay. Few have an idea of what the full menu of prices is for medical services.

At that point, general tax revenue, i.e., what comes out of your federal tax withholding, will be tapped to make up the difference.

One of the few less efficient enterprises than that is the government. That it is the genesis of Medicaid and Medicare exacerbates the problem.

Regardless, you know that you’ve encountered someone very serious about debt and deficits when he discusses attacking it at its root: the government’s ability to service it.

Investors (remember to check your 401k) will continue to buy US Treasurys if they believe Uncle Sam will continue to have the ability to pay the interest. That ability rests on the taxing power it has over productive citizens.

So, why not cut tax rates and reduce that ability?

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Hunter Biden Flees US, Claims He’s $17 Million in Debt

Hunter Biden has reportedly fled the US and is $17 million in debt.

Why doesn’t Hunter Biden just sell a few pieces of his highly coveted art? Don’t each one of Hunter Biden’s art pieces cost more than a Degas?

It is unclear where Hunter Biden is currently residing; however, last March, he was spotted out and about with his wife in South Africa.

Hunter’s wife, Melissa Cohen, is from South Africa.

Last year, Laura Loomer obtained photos of Hunter Biden, his second wife, Melissa Cohen, and their toddler son, Beau, on a lavish vacation in Cape Town, South Africa, with US Secret Service agents in tow.

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Coming Soon – Federal Red Ink Barfing Skyward Like You’ve Never Seen

Self-evidently, the news has been overwhelmingly focused on Washington’s current endeavor to unload $200 billion of imperial destruction upon Iran and its neighbors around the Persian Gulf. Well, and also upon all other users of petroleum products, LNG, LPGs, nitrogen fertilizer, food, helium, semiconductors, manufactured goods and most everything else anywhere on the planet.

Accordingly, comparatively scant attention has been given to another recent milestone on America’s headlong dash to fiscal disaster. To wit, the public debt crossed the $39 trillion mark and nearly in the blink of an eye, too. Just four years ago, we were at the $29 trillion level and nine years ago at the $19 trillion mark.

Needless to say, the “peacemaker” in the Oval Office has played no small role in this skyward ascent of the public debt. During his first term, the public debt grew by a staggering $8 trillion and already another $3 trillion has been racked-up during his second go-round.

Stated differently, the King of Debt has surely earned his place in the history books. The $11 trillion of new debt on his watch to date already accounts for 28% of all the public debt incurred in America since George Washington!

Then again, he still has got nearly three years to go, and the debt impact of both the OBBBA and the impending financial and human bloodbath in the Persian Gulf are just getting started.

Indeed, as to the latter it’s as clear as the orange glow around his cranium that the Donald is doing another round of fake rope-a-dope negotiations with the Iranians. That’s to buy time to get the 82nd Airborne, various amphibious landing ships and other invasionary forces in place for his next “win”.

That’s right.The fool in the Oval Office is actually going to attempt to seize the Alamo Kharg Island. That will mean military chaos in the Gulf, unprecedented turmoil in the global economy and soaring military expenditures, which will make the pending $200 billion DOD supplemental look like a mere down-payment.

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10 Years Ago Today, Trump Promised To Eliminate the National Debt. Instead, It Has Doubled.

Ten years ago today, Donald Trump said he would pay off the national debt in the span of just eight years.

That did not happen. Instead, the gross national debt has doubled since that day—from about $19 trillion to over $39 trillion. Much of that additional borrowing has taken place during Trump’s five-plus years in the White House.

The gap between Trump’s outlandish promise and the brutal fiscal reality of the past decade is not just a political gotcha. It’s also an apt illustration of how far and how fast the debt has spiraled. And it’s a painful reminder of a missed opportunity that Americans will be facing for a long, long time. The bill for these 10 years of fiscal profligacy will be coming due long after Trump has finally departed from the political scene.

But it’s a story that starts, as everything in politics seems to these days, with Trump.

“We’re not a rich country. We’re a debtor nation,” is what then-candidate Trump told The Washington Post in an interview on March 31, 2016 (a full transcript was published two days later). “We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt.”

How long would it take to do that, asked the Post‘s Bob Woodward.

“Fairly quickly,” Trump replied. When pressed for a more specific answer, Trump provided a shocking timeline. “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”

That was never going to happen. As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) pointed out shortly after Trump’s comments made headlines, “achieving this goal would be virtually impossible—particularly for a candidate who has proposed large tax cuts and ruled out significant entitlement reforms.”

Instead, the CRFB estimated that Trump’s proposals would cause the national debt to nearly double within 10 years. The group arrived at that figure by taking the existing baseline for the debt—which, as of early 2016, was expected to grow to about $28 trillion by 2026—and adding the estimated cost of Trump’s various campaign promises.

It’s worth appreciating how remarkably accurate that assessment turned out to be. The number-crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office and the CRFB didn’t know there would be a pandemic. They didn’t know the outcome of the major tax-and-spending bills that Trump and President Joe Biden would pass. Heck, they didn’t even know who would be president—remember, in April 2026, most of the political class didn’t believe Trump had much of a chance.

The accuracy of that prediction points to two things, Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the CRFB, said when asked about it this week. First, the extent to which rising debt was baked into the federal budget before Trump came on the scene. Social Security and Medicare are the largest federal programs, and both were on pace to borrow more during the 2020s.

Second, it’s due to Trump keeping many of his campaign promises. That’s not the compliment that it might sound like. Trump vowed not to touch the aforementioned entitlement programs that were driving borrowing to new heights, and he promised to both cut taxes and increase military spending. That was a recipe for higher deficits, and over his first four years in office, Trump added over $8 trillion to the national debt that he’d once sought to “get rid of.”

Biden picked up where Trump left off, adding another $4.7 trillion to the debt with various proposals. In his first year back in the White House, Trump has done nothing to address the growing pile of debt. The federal government borrowed $1.8 trillion during the fiscal year that ended in September and is on pace to borrow about the same amount this year.

What have Americans gotten from a decade of heavy borrowing that doubled the size of the debt? Higher inflation and higher interest rates, for starters.

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