The people/countries who hold US Treasuries get the interest payments. The US national debt is comprised of the publicly held debt and Intra-governmental holdings, which includes the SS and HI trust funds along with the federal government pension funds.
When interest rates are held artificially low by the Federal Reserve, the debt servicing costs are far less. Currently it is about 1%. Historically, they have been around 5%. If that happens, the sh*t hits the fan as a huge percentage of our budget goes to paying interest costs. Pretty soon, debt servicing costs could exceed the amount we spend on defense. So-called mandatory spending comprises two-thirds of the federal budget.
At 5% its 1.5 billion in a 4 billion economy with all kinds of fixed costs,time to cut the budget and stop the ridiculous spending.
Looks for these clowns to spend the last dime before the end of the year when the good guys come back into office.