To look at it another way, that $40 trillion works out to roughly $297,000<\/a> worth of debt for every household in the United States. And it comes out to between seven and eight years\u2019 worth of tax revenue<\/a> collected by the IRS.<\/p>\n How did we get here? Kevin Williamson offered up<\/a> an excellent history-slash-explanation on The Dispatch Podcast. He points out that tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have remained steady since World War II\u2014at about 15 percent of GDP\u2014but how we\u2019ve chosen to spend that money has changed. Back then it was 80 percent on defense and 20 percent on everything else. Now interest on the debt alone accounts for almost 20 percent, defense spending is another 20 percent, and the rest goes mostly to entitlement programs. He also explains that the high interest rates we\u2019ve seen in recent years are part of the problem:<\/p>\n One of the reasons the interest rates have gone up has to do with overall market conditions, but another reason they\u2019ve gone up has to do with the size of the debt itself. As we get more and more debt, we have to compete more against lenders to get that money, and also the less sustainable our situation looks. And so lenders want higher interest rates to make up for that risk.<\/p>\n Kevin\u2019s comments hint at the interplay between the debt and interest rates; contributing writer Jessica Reidl goes a little deeper on the problem. Get ready for a debt-interest rate spiral, she warns<\/a>. Here\u2019s what that looks like:<\/p>\n Structural deficits and elevated rates keep federal debt climbing. Financing that debt requires the government to borrow heavily every year, which pushes rates up further. Higher interest costs swell the debt, forcing still more borrowing and still higher interest rates. Eventually financial markets recognize that a spiral is underway and, fearing default or monetization, demand even higher rates to compensate for the risk. At that point the government is borrowing destabilizing sums at punishing rates simply to cover the interest on its earlier borrowing.<\/p>\n Such spirals have happened elsewhere, from Greece\u2019s cascade of bailouts<\/a> to Argentina\u2019s serial defaults<\/a> to Sri Lanka\u2019s 2022 collapse<\/a>. Sure, the United States is not Greece and is unlikely to experience these scenarios in full. Yet even the tools meant to avert them inflict real economic damage. The rosiest outcome is that, as rates climb and deficits approach 10 percent of GDP<\/a>, lawmakers finally heed the bond market and enact fiscal reforms to slow borrowing.<\/p>\n Riedl also wrote about one measure that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has taken\u2014announcing that the Treasury would buy back some longer-term bonds \u201cto assure investors that they can safely buy long-term bonds at modest interest rates because the Treasury stands ready to intervene on behalf of their confidence,\u201d as she explained. But that announcement hasn\u2019t exactly moved markets. For an in-depth look at Bessent\u2019s buy-back plan, check out<\/a> Monday\u2019s Morning Dispatch.<\/p>\n If only there were a politician with some ideas about how to tackle this problem. Someone like, say, former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Way back in 2011, Ryan laid out a serious proposal for entitlement reform<\/a>, which he dubbed The Path to Prosperity. The response from the left was to accuse him<\/a> of trying to \u201cthrow Granny off a cliff.\u201d Since Ryan left Congress in 2019, the national debt has doubled.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ryan is no longer a lawmaker, but he hasn\u2019t given up on fiscal conservatism. And he\u2019s even still a little optimistic. Michael Warren interviewed Ryan for our new newsletter Next Right (sign up here<\/a>!), and they discussed the debt problem. Mike writes<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n The problem infecting our politics, Ryan said repeatedly during our 40-minute conversation, is populism, which in its various iterations offers seemingly easy and cheap fixes to problems that require tough choices and sacrifice. That irritable gesture continues to dominate both the Republican Party and, via its current love affair (or hostage situation\u2014take your pick) with the Democratic Socialists of America, the Democratic Party. Ryan wouldn\u2019t criticize anyone by name, but he expressed no solidarity or common cause with the populists in his own party. He maintains that the reforms of Social Security and Medicare he pushed while he was chairman of the House Budget Committee during the Obama administration were not only a necessary fix to the problems facing the federal budget but were politically sellable, with House Republicans voting for a budget that incorporated those reforms for four straight years while maintaining their majority.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, executive editor Michael Reneau remembered<\/a> Dolly Parton, Nathan Beacom wrote<\/a> about vice and virtue, and Shiv Parihar reports<\/a> from Kyiv on the occasion of Ukraine\u2019s Independence Day. Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend.<\/p>\n \n That\u2019s another thing about Dolly. She conjured up her rhinestone-studded, glamor-trash look in part because even as a little girl she wanted to get dolled up in the makeup she couldn\u2019t afford and that her religious parents didn\u2019t abide, but we were all in on the bit with her. Part of the churn of social media clips Tuesday afternoon included countless TV appearances of Dolly making fun of her looks. In a 1995 appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, doing his famous Top 10 bit, she blurted out her No. 1 pet peeve: \u201cNobody notices I\u2019ve got a great ass, too.\u201d The audience ate it up. Even her take on the Happiest Place on Earthast Tennessee, the Dollywood theme park, is a bit of us being in on the joke with her. A few Christmases ago, we gave our kids season passes to Dollywood (I did not play the Christmas album for them, but they heard it at Grammy and Grandpa\u2019s plenty). If you haven\u2019t been, you should know: The kitsch is thick. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014there\u2019s a reason some travel publications give it higher marks than Walt Disney World in some categories. But there\u2019s just enough Appalachian nostalgia and charm to serve as a wink, a hit-you-in-the-face aesthetic of idyllic mountain scenes and retro diners and cars accented with fins and chrome. \u2026 But if you walk around and take it all in hearing Dolly\u2019s chuckle, you know you\u2019re in on it all with her, believing it\u2019s the kind of place befitting a girl who dreamed bigger than the hollers but who never forgot them. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/testimonial-jeff.png\")
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