April 04, 2022
Our national debt recently passed $30 trillion, and nobody cares.
There was barely a blip in the mainstream media. Most Americans have no idea how much we owe or that it’s virtually impossible we’ll ever pay it off.
In fact, I think the only way the national debt goes away at this level is by default, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen at some point.
The $30 trillion is debt held by the public (i.e., U.S. taxpayers) as well as intragovernmental debt. It doesn’t include some pretty big unfunded items, like pensions for millions of federal workers. Include that, and our total national debt is estimated at more than $89 trillion.
Yet nobody ever talks about this.
Current debt per U.S. citizen is $91,203. So, in order for us to pay off our national debt, every man, woman, and child in America would have to contribute $91,203.
How did we get here?
Well, the government spent records amount of money to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. It ran deficits of $3.13 trillion in fiscal year 2020 and $2.77 trillion in fiscal year 2021.
Due to the pandemic, let’s give the benefit of the doubt for the past couple years. Now that things are getting more normal, spending should fall back to normal too, right?
Wrong. The Biden administration’s official budget request calls for a bit less spending initially, but substantially more in future years.
The only normal that’s returning is the government spends more money, no matter who is in office.