This column is about our growing and unsustainable national debt . Every year our federal government runs a budget deficit . For this fiscal year it is projected to be about $1.9 trillion. To fund that gap our government needs to borrow money by selling bonds. The sum of all the annual borrowing is our national debt. Currently the debt is about $36 trillion. In 2024, Americans paid $882 billion in interest on that debt. Because our government continues to run annual deficits the national debt will continue to grow and so will interest payments. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt will be $52 trillion in 2035 and that interest payments over the next ten years will total $13.8 trillion. Moody’s and the other two major credit rating firms have already lowered the credit rating of the US.

Selling bonds requires a buyer. When institutions, governments or individuals consider buying US government bonds there are at least three factors they will take into account : confidence in being repaid in full , anticipated inflation over the term of the bond and alternate investment opportunities. The benchmark US bond is for a ten year term. At the end of May of this year that rate was 4.250 percent compared to about 3.4 percent in 2023.

To cover this year’s deficit our government is issuing bonds. For this year’s $1.9 trillion deficit a ten year bond at four percent interest comes to $76 billion for interest alone. Here I something important to remember: Even if our annual budget deficits were to be reduced to zero tomorrow morning, interest payments on the existing debt would continue forever. At some point prospective buyers will require higher rates of interest .

There are two additional factors bond buyers often take into account : Confidence in the rule of law and the stability of the debt issuing country . President Trump has demonstrated his disregard for the norms of democratic, constitutional government . His rule by Executive Order and his ever changing tariff policies do not speak well for stability.

One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) , the budget bill now moving through Congress , will add to both the annual deficit and the cumulative national debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office projection debt-service costs under the OBBBA alone , would total $551 billion over the 2025–2034 period. That would increase OBBBA’s cumulative effect on the deficit to $3.0 trillion.

The analysis of the Republican party is quite different. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said that the OBBBA will not actually increase the deficit because the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is not giving the bill credit for the “extraordinary growth” it will produce. In addition the Republican Party believes that there are “Pay fors”, that is reduction in spending on immigrants, universities, health care, low-income households and other Trump targets. Republicans correctly anticipate that the Trump tariffs will bring in several hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue. They do not take into account that the damage caused by the tariffs may offset the revenue they generate. Tax revenue will be lost because of adverse effects on the economy including a decrease in American exports, supply chain difficulties and a possible increase in unemployment.

Here is a short list of the consequences every day Americans will experience due to the continuing annual deficits and growing national debt.

An American baby born this morning already owes $108,000 as their share of the national debt. Before they graduate elementary school that child will owe $141,000.

Money borrowed to service the national debt is not available for private investment or is available only at a high rate of interest. That slows down economic growth. We may face a combination of both higher inflation and lower employment.

The social safety net will be difficult to maintain. That includes maintaining Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as we currently have them.

Maintaining a strong national defense and a constructive role in word affairs will be difficult

What needs to be done? At the very least our annual federal budget needs to be in balance so that the government doesn’t need to borrow yet more money every year . To accomplish that expenditures would need to be cut and taxes on middle class Americans, not just the wealthy, would need to be raised. Both of those actions would generate enormous push back from voters. Therefor neither political party has seriously addressed the problem.

There have been many large numbers in this column. Here is the bottom line: If we want a child born tomorrow to enjoy a degree of economic prosperity we all will have to be willing to make some sacrifices today.