The rise of the federal debt over the past two decades has prompted countless warnings that the United States is approaching a fiscal reckoning, a day when the government won’t be able to drink all it wants from the fountain of easy money.
The more immediate danger is that the fountain keeps flowing.
The fear of a future crisis is distracting attention from the problems that the government’s dependence on debt is already causing. We, the people, are spending a staggering amount of money each year to borrow money. The interest payments on the federal debt now exceed the government’s spending on the military. They are roughly equal to the annual cost of Medicare. The sum is more than the government spends on anything except Social Security.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” would deepen this profligacy, repeating the mistakes of the 2017 legislation on which it is based. Once again, Republicans are proposing to reduce taxation. Once again, they are proposing to force the government to borrow more to pay its bills. Once again, federal spending on interest payments would rise — and money spent on interest is money that can’t be spent on other things.
The government is on pace to pay more than $1 trillion to its lenders this year. The House version of Mr. Trump’s bill, already approved by that chamber, would increase interest payments on the debt by an average of $55 billion a year over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The increase alone is enough money to fully repair every bridge in the United States. The Senate is still working on its bill, but early signs suggest it may cost even more than the House version.
America’s debt cost is already a large expenditure and would rise further if Trump’s budget bill passes.
Because the Trump administration and House Republicans have savaged the C.B.O.’s analysis, it is worth adding that Phillip Swagel, who heads the office, is a Republican reappointed at the behest of House Republicans just two years ago. At the time, they praised his “objectivity and integrity.” The C.B.O.’s analysis closely resembles independent assessments by the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the Yale Budget Lab and the Tax Foundation.
