I & I Editorial BoardIf you want to know just how dire the federal government’s fiscal situation is, consider the fact that interest on the national debt for the first time now tops every other spending category but one, according to the latest monthly report from the Treasury. This “achievement” has been brought to you by President Joe Biden.
According to the report, the federal government spent $682 billion in “net interest” payments so far this fiscal year (which ends Sept. 30). That’s more than all the money spent on “health” ($670 billion), national defense ($644 billion), and income security — which includes payments to the poor ($508 billion).
Another way to think about it: the federal government is currently sending 34% more money to the bondholders of federal debt than it is to the nation’s poor.
The only thing that beats net interest costs is Social Security, which has doled out $1.1 trillion to date.
This is a sharp departure from even the recent past. Last June, interest on the debt was the sixth largest outlay. At the start of this year, it was the fourth biggest spending program. By May it had crept up to third.
The reason for the explosion in interest costs: the combination of a massive increase in the federal debt combined with high interest rates that Biden’s spending spree produced.
And here’s the kicker: All of those interest payments are being deficit-financed. We are borrowing money to pay interest on existing debt.
According to Treasury, the federal deficit is just shy of $1.3 trillion this fiscal year. Treasury expects the deficit to reach $1.9 trillion by the time the fiscal year is over, which is up from $1.7 trillion last year and $1.4 trillion the year before that.
It doesn’t take a financial genius to see where this leads.
This, as much as anything else, is Biden’s real legacy.
It was Biden who, while selling his massive $2 trillion “rescue plan,” said on Feb. 5, 2021, that “The way I see it, the biggest risk is not going too big. It’s if we go too small.”
Biden could not have been more wrong, and we are all paying the price.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
This is all by design.
For years I have predicted that the cost of servicing our national debt will be our downfall. This is unsustainable.
Many articles and media in I&I and other places talk about the fraud and stealing of the money the Federal Government spends (ie our taxes!). It seems that now the theft of federal funds must be built into the policies and programs created.
If the money stolen were somehow returned and the people who stole it were imprisoned or executed then our deficits (and debts) would not be nearly as high and the thieves would be deterred.
It’s almost as if the Government thinks it is playing with monopoly money: It doesn’t mean anything to those elected or those bureaucrats employed by the Government. However, we who pay taxes and fund the Government, it means something to us!
I certainly hope Trump gets in; cleans the Swamp; punishes the thieves; and takes the deficit and debt more seriously.
This Biden Administration has been a 4 year nightmare and a con man’s wet dream!
the problem is not hard to fix…except that politicians don’t want to fix it…because most voters don’t care enough to vote accordingly
Like a lot of you I’m very concerned with the federal deficit and the interest payments, but it appears that President Trump had more responsibility than President Biden. See article from “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget”
https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt