America\u2019s $31 trillion national debt has now exceeded its annual economic output, new government numbers show, a milestone that critics say is a crisis point for the country.<\/p>\n
The United States has crossed the 100% debt-to-GDP ratio previously, but economists do not expect it to fall back below that threshold \u2014 marking the moment the national debt became, in all likelihood, permanently larger than the economy.<\/p>\n
So far, there are no serious efforts underway in Washington to make major changes.<\/p>\n
On the campaign trail in both 2016 and 2024, Donald Trump pledged to reduce the national debt \u2014 in 2016, Trump said he\u2019d get rid of it in eight years<\/a>. White House spokesperson Kush Desai told NOTUS on Thursday that the president is holding to his promise.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump pledged to slash the pervasive waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending, and from terminating asinine DEI \u2018research\u2019 grants to cracking down on Medicaid fraudsters, the Trump administration is delivering on this pledge every day,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n Desai added that the \u201cfederal budget deficit decreased by over 20 percent in President Trump\u2019s first full year in office compared to the same time period the year before,\u201d pointing to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis<\/a> which indicates that the deficit shrank 17.8% compared to the year prior.<\/p>\n The Congressional Budget Office reports that the federal budget deficit decreased by 2% in fiscal year 2025<\/a> compared to the year before. At $1.8 trillion, it is still one of the highest budget deficits ever.<\/p>\n \u201cI think everybody knows the need to do more,\u201d Republican Rep. Randy Fine said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s one of those problems \u2014 it\u2019s easy to say next time, later, later, because it\u2019s going to be painful to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Most Republicans NOTUS spoke to acknowledged the severity of the problem, but few were able to point to substantive efforts underway to raise revenue or get serious about cutting spending. Fine said he was pushing to end all social services to undocumented immigrants, but even the most aggressive estimates<\/a> highlighted by Republicans of spending on noncitizens would hardly make a dent.<\/p>\n Some Republicans pointed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut spending on programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid<\/a>. But the bill also extended the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax cuts and cut taxes further, like on tips and overtime.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have people who talk about debt and deficits as only a spending problem on certain programs,\u201d Gbenga Ajilore, the chief economist with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, told NOTUS. \u201cSo when they talk about, \u2018We need to curb our spending, we need to be physically tight,\u2019 it\u2019s always on the backs of low- and medium-income people.\u201d<\/p>\n The debt increase has been driven by a number of factors \u2014 decades of tax cuts, increased spending in areas like defense and an aging population that contributes to increased mandatory spending on social programs.<\/p>\n The United States has been in this situation before, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a> and during World War II, when the debt-to-GDP ratio was its highest. But unlike those instances, economists do not anticipate the ratio falling much further below 100% again; the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2036, the federal debt will be 120% of GDP<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to get serious about this,\u201d Republican Sen. Rand Paul told NOTUS. \u201cThere is every indication that we are facing a crisis. We have to get serious and we have to cut spending.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s bad,\u201d Sen. Josh Hawley, another Republican, said. \u201cI think it\u2019s a sign of terrible stewardship on the part of Congress for not just one or two years but for decades now. There\u2019s a lot of work to be done there.\u201d<\/p>\n But the work of moving aggressively to cut spending or raise revenue does not appear to be progressing.<\/p>\n Congress is currently pushing to spend $400 million to aid the construction of a ballroom on the White House grounds, which Trump previously said would be paid for with taxpayer dollars. Some Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott balked at this \u2014 \u201cWe have $39 trillion in debt,\u201d he said, using the total debt that includes money the government owes itself.<\/p>\n Experts say cutting anything is a start.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you get out of a hole?\u201d Ajilore said. \u201cWell, the first thing you need to do is stop digging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"America\u2019s $31 trillion national debt has now exceeded its annual economic output, new government numbers show, a milestone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-616269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}