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Interest on National Debt Will Reach $1 Trillion Annually, More Than Any Other Budget Item [1]
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Date: 2025-05-27
When Congress and the president approve a yearly budget and spending outstrips revenue, the government is forced to borrow money to make up the difference. That borrowed money is not free. Interest on the loans must be paid. When discussions about the national debt are endlessly bandied about, usually by Republicans who incessantly claim concern about balancing the federal budget but inevitably balloon it every chance they get, interest payments on the debt are rarely if ever mentioned. What most voters do not recognize is that our annual interest payments on our national accumulating debt amounts to an estimated $952 billion in 2025 and a projected $1 trillion in 2026. That is the largest outlay of funds for any item in the federal budget including national defense. The federal government is sinking in the quicksand of insanely mounting debt.
Why should voters be concerned? That $1 trillion in annual interest payments could be used to strengthen and expand Medicare, protect Medicaid, fund massive infrastructure needs, increase the Child Tax Credit to combat poverty, and so much more. Instead, Elon Musk and his DOGE doofuses whose ignorance of how federal programs operate and provide critical services for Americans is astounding, pretend that addressing the national debt requires slash-and-burn tactics. These ridiculously careless across-the-board cuts trash federal programs in critical functions provided by numerous government agencies and destroy careers of thousands of federal workers.
When Bill Clinton left office in 2001, there was a $279 billion budget surplus. The Congressional Budget Office projected a cumulative $5.9 trillion surplus by 2011 if the Clinton policies and legislation were maintained, enough to completely wipe out our national debt. That’s right! Had the Clinton tax increases on the rich been maintained, there would be no national debt today. Instead, George W. Bush became president and immediately set about doing what Republicans always want to do, namely, provide massive tax cuts for the rich that threw the country once again into debt thereby increasing interest payments.
Trump and Republicans are at it again. In Trump’s first term, he added $8 trillion to the national debt. His current “Big Beautiful Bill” (gag) is projected to add almost $4 trillion to our $36.2 trillion national debt. The lie perpetrated incessantly by the Republican propaganda machine that Republicans are fiscal conservatives is laughable. Democrats have consistently reduced the debt once in power after Republicans have massively increased it, but the myth continues. The truth is that Republicans are spendthrifts, intent on contributing to the avarice of its millionaire and billionaire supporters and worrying not at all about debt and burgeoning interest payments. Their faux concern for the federal debt is just an expedient excuse to savage social programs. Democrats everywhere should be blasting Republicans for their fiscal profligacy and touting Democrats as the party capable of balancing the federal budget. The statistics don’t lie. Share this essay and spread the facts.
For those interested in dozens of strategies and tactics to fight the good fight against the Trumpian rolling coup, check out my new book Willful Ignorance and Stupid Political Decisions: The 2024 Election and How to Combat the Rise of Oligarchy in America (available on Amazon).
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/27/2324562/-Interest-on-National-Debt-Will-Reach-1-Trillion-Annually-More-Than-Any-Other-Budget-Item?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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