At last! We finally hit $40 trillion in red ink. Since the 2007-2008 financial crash, there’s been an avalanche of news stories on the looming consequences of the skyrocketing national debt. Yet, even with almost 20 years of attention, scrutiny, and endless proposals to reduce the debt, it continues up, up, and away.
Stanford economist John Taylor warned us in his book First Principles: Five Keys to Prosperity that the national debt’s “soaring upward climb resembles the fireworks on Independence Day.” If this continues burning unabated, “it will be the end of America as we know it. The United States would be an impoverished debtor nation.” He wrote that in 2012 when the national debt clocked in at $16 trillion. Fourteen years later, while still not impoverished, we are getting there. Wait, who is “we?” You, me, the beggar, the banker, the butcher, the candlestick maker, and anyone who has received any remuneration from the government. That means all Americans, with the possible exception of a survivalist living off the grid in a yurt on a Montana mountainside while awaiting the apocalypse.
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Five years ago, my sad 83-year-old heart demanded a doctor drill a pacemaker into my chest in order to keep on quivering. I have no idea what that operation cost — $50,000? $100,000? — along with a five-day stay at the hospital. The Department of Veterans Affairs picked up the tab. Finally, my 11-month tour in Vietnam paid off. Thank you for thanking me for my service in the Marine Corps. (Another government benefit when stationed in Da Nang. In addition to my regular military paycheck, an extra $83 per month combat pay.) Most veteran benefits fall under the category of what the government defines as “mandatory spending,” automatic expenditures paid out regardless of the congressional appropriations process. The cost last year for pacemaker installations, along with all the other veteran benefits, ran $369 billion.
Out of the 7 trillion smackaroos in the 2025 federal outlay, $5.1 trillion got shelled out for mandatory programs and $1.9 trillion for discretionary spending, which is subject to congressional oversight. Discretionary spending includes monies dished out for the Departments of War ($980 billion), Agriculture ($213 billion), including the mandatory food stamp program at $101 billion, Transportation ($121 billion), Education ($90 billion), and foreign aid ($47 billion), and the Environmental Protection Agency ($21 billion).
Among the much more expensive mandatory programs, Social Security led the pack at $1.6 trillion. The sickness twins stand tall (or fall down) next to Social Security — Medicare at $988 billion and Medicaid at $971 billion. The Medicare cost includes $125 billion for ObamaCare, also known as the Affordable Care Act. Toss in interest on the national debt last year, just shy of $1 trillion, and we are talking real money.
Stepping back and looking at the trajectory of our fiscal history is useful but depressing. Only once has the national debt been paid down to zero, in 1835 under Andrew Jackson. That was a short-lived victory, done in by the panic of 1837. Over the next century and a half, the debt could be irritating at times but not front-page news. Only in the late 20th century did America find itself trudging down an economic Trail of Tears. Newly elected Ronald Reagan warned that the size and pace of the national debt were unsustainable. Government spending had “run amok” when, for the first time, in 1981, the debt load crossed over the $1 trillion mark. Then, almost 30 years later:
$10 trillion in 2009; $20 trillion in 2017; $30 trillion in 2022; $40 trillion in 2026 — Headlines on every tenth tranche: Milestone. Wake-Up Call. Alarm Bells. Breaking Point. Crunch Time. Whatever. Great news for me. I’ll get to repackage this op-ed with a few tweaks when the $50 trillion day arrives. That will be in 2029, according to a projection by Bank of America’s chief equity strategist, Michael Hartnett. Or sometime in 2030 (Forbes). Or 2031 (U.S. Debt Projections). Or 2034 (Congressional Budget Office).
CONGRESS WON’T FIX ITSELF. THE CONSTITUTION SAYS IT DOESN’T HAVE TO
Looking afar, will $50 trillion trigger the financial fireworks John Taylor highlighted years ago? Unlikely. Kicking the can down the road is easy because, unlike a personal credit card with a limit on how much you are allowed to borrow, there is no limit on government spending. Better still, Uncle Sam can let the good times roll by rolling over the debt. Thus, the everlasting borrowing binge continues. Theoretically, there must be some limit on the national debt, but nobody knows what this amount might be. Not even JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. Back in January, he warned that the ballooning national debt, combined with global political uncertainty, represented two “tectonic plates” slowly moving and undermining the world financial order. Adding roughly $2 trillion a year to the debt bucket under both Democratic and Republican administrations “will not work out eventually,” he said, “I just don’t know when that is.”
Both parties pin the debt spiral on each other. Republican tax cuts starve the government of needed revenue, say the Democrats. Way too much money goes out the door for entitlements, say Republicans. While both parties are to blame, the Democrats are far more likely to drive debt accumulation, especially now with the ascendancy of socialists getting traction in the electoral arena. For them, government debt is a cash cow. Free stuff all around, party down. On the other hand, the rage to leap on the socialist bandwagon could be the best thing for the Republican Party since the election of Reagan. A significant majority of Americans know that sticking the word “democratic” in front of socialist is a con. Nonetheless, the national debt rolls on.
Bob Armstrong is a contributing writer to Thursday Review, an online magazine, and the author of a new memoir, No Exit from Vietnam, Pen & Sword Books.
