U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion as America’s Borrowing Binge Continues

8 hours ago by Florencia (she/her) to c/politics

America’s gross national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, an ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and President Trump’s tax cuts.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America’s debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States into a deeper financial hole.

I don't have a picture, but just picture a 45 degree line

NekoKoneko 18 points 8 hours ago

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025.

Ignoring the Iran war for a moment, because that's just hubris and ego, the real systematic theft is Republicans cutting taxes predominantly on the rich, because even their strategy to use that as a wedge to shrink government is itself a bad faith argument. Really, the GOP will never successfully reduce government spending even if they were able to cut entitlements.

Instead, what is happening is that tax cuts are just another transfer of wealth from poor to rich, because when borrowing and money-printing is used to pay debts incurred due to tax-cut-driven shortfalls, that devaluation of dollars obliterates currency savings and "wealth" more severely to those who hold cash rather than investments and property.

The richest people, whose holdings are not in straight US currency, are cushioned against the biggest impacts, which means they own a larger relative percent of post-devaluation wealth.

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Blue_Morpho 16 points 6 hours ago

We are now 3 months away from Republicans making the deficit their number 1 issue.

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bedwyr 6 points 5 hours ago

The US will default before we get rid of these politicians. De Facto default most likely, printing money to pay off the debt to the point of watering down the currency and causing massive inflation.

We are a ways off still, no matter how fucked the US is, the rest of the world is even worse, or thought to be, in regards to monetary policy.

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hoppeduponcoffee 2 points 4 hours ago

I always wanted to know what it’s like to pay $1000 dollars for a loaf of bread, like they did in Argentina during times of inflationary crisis. Except we don’t have kick ass food and a beautiful culture like they do.

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unitedwithme 5 points 8 hours ago

Can China finally rug-pull us like Trump has on so many other things so that we can finally try to clean up this mess?

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hoppeduponcoffee 1 point 4 hours ago

At this point, I welcome the CCP takeover.

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