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The US national debt just surpassed $38 trillion – and it happened just 76 days after shattering the $37 trillion barrier.
According to the Treasury Department’s debt to the penny database, the total outstanding US debt now stands at $38,008,137,064,951.61.
The US is now paying about $1 trillion every year just to pay interest on the pile of debt, which is the fastest-growing part of the federal budget.
A bird’s-eye view of the rapid rate of debt accumulation shows the national debt hit $36 trillion in November of 2024.
It then surpassed $37 trillion about nine months later, and now crossed $38 trillion in just over two months.
The head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog dedicated to tracking America’s fiscal future, says US lawmakers need to recognize what’s happening.
CEO Michael A. Peterson says in a new statement,
“Reaching $38 trillion in debt during a government shutdown is the latest troubling sign that lawmakers are not meeting their basic fiscal duties… the pace we’re on is twice as fast as the rate of growth since 2000…
We spent $4 trillion on interest over the last decade, but will spend $14 trillion in the next ten years. Interest costs crowd out important public and private investments in our future, harming the economy for every American.
Lawmakers need to realize that the financial markets are watching. All three credit ratings agencies have dropped U.S. credit below their highest rating, citing both our unsustainable fiscal outlook and political gridlock.
Adding trillion after trillion to the debt and budgeting-by-crisis is no way for a great nation like America to run its finances.
Instead of letting the debt clock tick higher and higher, lawmakers should take advantage of the many responsible reforms that would put our nation on a stronger path for the future.”
