The Big Take DC
America’s ‘Debt Spiral’ Is Nearing a Critical Threshold
Annual interest payments on US government debt will soon be larger than what the country spends on national defense.
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When the US borrows money, it needs to pay its loans back with interest—just like any other borrower. But America’s national debt is currently $34 trillion and rising. Soon, the US will need to spend more each year paying interest than what it spends on national defense.
In the last few weeks, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin told Bloomberg TV that the US economy is “in a terrible place,” and Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb warned that “a debt spiral is like a death spiral.”