In July of last year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office triggered panic when it warned that projected payments on interest on the national debt would outpace defense spending, as well as nondefense discretionary spending. And that interest payment would outpace Medicare spending by 2046.
Just 14 months later, the cost of interest on our $35 trillion national debt has already blown past these two benchmarks, beating the CBO‘s projections by a staggering 22 years.
Following the $1.45 trillion spent on Social Security, the $950 billion cost of borrowing comprised the second largest line item of spending by our federal government in the fiscal year that ended this past September. At $896 billion, Medicare came in a close third. Our entire national defense budget, at $826 billion, was the fourth-largest spending category for fiscal 2024.
Just in time for voters to…
