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By Hugh Cameron
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Republicans in Congress are sounding the alarm over the country’s rapidly increasing national debt.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC) released a statement calling to attention the "unsustainable" and "immoral" levels piling up under successive governments, and said this was "threatening the economic future of our children and grandchildren."
"We continue to hit new record highs for our national debt, exacerbating an already economic threat our nation faces," said Arizona Representative and JEC Chairman David Schweikert. "In this fiscal year alone, we have added more than $1 trillion, bringing the total to $38.647 trillion."
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Why It Matters
Budget deficits and America’s mounting debts have long been on the radar of economists and fiscally hawkish lawmakers, given the potential implications for economic growth and borrowing costs, as well as taxes and inflation if the government takes drastic measures to pare these down. These concerns were heightened following the passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," signed into law by President Donald Trump in July and containing both spending increases and sweeping tax cuts.
And polls have also shown that confidence in the country’s fiscal trajectory is plummeting amid these pressures, and that Americans believe remedying the budget outlook should be a top priority for policymakers.
What To Know
As noted by the JEC, the U.S. has already added $1 trillion to the national debt in the current fiscal year which began in October, and the committee noted that the current path "of spending borrowed money" puts interest payments on track to "become one of the largest drivers of federal spending, and eventually, the largest line item in the budget."
According to Treasury Department data, cited by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), net interest payments on the national debt totaled $970 billion in fiscal year 2025, equating to 13.8 percent of federal expenditures and 3.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
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And an outlook published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last week warned that deficits will push the amount of debt held by the public from nearly $31 trillion today to $56 trillion by 2036, with debt also increasing to 120 percent of GDP over this period.
CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote that the projections "continue to indicate that the fiscal trajectory is not sustainable," while Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, called these "an urgent warning to our leaders about America’s costly fiscal path."
What People Are Saying
Representative David Schweikert, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said on Wednesday: "As we continue down this path of spending borrowed money, interest payments are on track to become one of the largest drivers of federal spending, and eventually, the largest line item in the budget. When we borrow to pay our interest, and borrow to fund our government, we are compounding the problem at an accelerated rate."
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), in response to the CBO’s projections, wrote: "CBO’s latest baseline shows an unsustainable fiscal outlook, with debt approaching record levels, deficits remaining elevated at more than twice a reasonable target, and interest costs exploding. Later in the decade, under CBO’s baseline, the average interest rate on all federal debt will exceed nominal economic growth, which could represent the start of a debt spiral."
What Happens Next
Numerous budget watchdogs have said that recent estimates and projections regarding America's fiscal path have highlighted the need for lawmakers to acknowledge and address America's budget outlook.
"Every dollar diverted to interest is a dollar not invested in growth, opportunity, or the next generation," Schweikert said on Wednesday. "We are threatening the economic future of our children and grandchildren, and it is time my colleagues wake up, look at the math, confront the hard facts, and prioritize fiscal responsibility."
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