Posted on 05/21/2024 8:15:36 PM PDT by george76
The United States has long had the world’s biggest defense budget, with spending this year set to approach $900 billion.
Yet this spending is rapidly being eclipsed by the fastest-growing portion of federal outflows: interest payments on the national debt.
For the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began last October, net interest payments totaled $514 billion, outpacing defense by $20 billion. Budget analysts think that trend will continue, making 2024 the first year ever that the United States will spend more on interest payments than on national defense.
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Just two years ago, interest payments were the seventh-largest federal spending category, behind Social Security, health programs other than Medicare, income assistance, national defense, Medicare, and education.
Interest is now the third-biggest expenditure after Social Security and health... interest expenses in 2024 are running 41% higher than in 2023.
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The first is that annual deficits have exploded, leaving the nation with a gargantuan $34.6 trillion in total federal debt, 156% higher than the national debt at the end of 2010.
In the 1990s, the average federal deficit was $138 billion per year. In the 2000s, it was $318 billion. In the 2010s, it was $829 billion. Since 2020, the annual deficit has swelled to $2.24 trillion, largely due to pandemic-related stimulus measures in 2020 and 2021. The projection for 2024 is a $1.5 trillion shortfall.
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As a percentage of GDP, the annual deficit has nearly doubled in just 10 years, from 2.8% in 2014 to a projected 5.3% in 2024. So there's just a lot more borrowing to pay interest on.
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More taxpayer money going to interest expenses will eventually leave less money for everything else, and at some point, the Treasury won’t be able to borrow its way out of the problem anymore.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
US Notes don’t accrue interest, “Federal” Reserve notes do. Why are no US Notes being issued?
Oh well.
Looks like they are losing control over gold and silver, too.
ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN…the globalists’ plan
This is very ominous. The chickens are coming home to roost for all the reckless spending fueled by debt from past politicians.
The Big Reset is coming, and there’s nothing that is going to stop it.
Can we still give more money to Ukraine? I am asking for
Zelinsky since he is occupied looking for another villa.
WOW!
>> The Big Reset is coming
“You will own nothing... so you can travel light as you hunt down the bastids what did this to you...”
>> It is going to take Carteresque level interest rates to slow the mad government spending.
Interest rates won’t do it. It’ll take a bloody political massacre of our dysfunctional Congress plus cutting government employment to the bone, and beyond.
The newly unemployed government class will want to foment revolution, too — you can take that to the bank.
We live in interesting times, and they are about to get interestinger.
Not sustainable.
Hard to imagine how it’s even recoverable.
It’s not as if we haven’t seen what happens to countries when they get to this stage.
Not recoverable.
Yep when the average interest rate on the current federal debt hits 13 percent it consumes 100% of federal revenue. (Let alone the future debt total at an extra $2 trillion/year deficit). The interest rate on a 10-year treasury bill hit 15% during the Carter years. (Currently running at about 4.44%).
To really stop inflation the general rule is you have to raise the federal funds rate above the (real) inflation rate...like Volcker did in the 1980's to "WIN" (Whip Inflation Now") 😳 That would mean that that J. Powell would have to DOUBLE the current Fed Funds Rate. Not going to happen..."rock/hard place".
Borrowing money is normally cheap, and needs to be for capitalism to work. The whole point of a free market is for capitalist investors to rush in to expand the 1 out of 10 businesses that hit the ball.
The cost of borrowing money becomes expensive when big government realizes it can steal from their captive audiece. Fedzilla has been stealing so long, we've gotten used to it. We now think it is normal. It is not.
If you are married to a credit card big spender, paying down the credit cards is useless. Once it becomes obvious that bankruptcy is the only option, the first thing to do is run up all lines of credit to the max. We've entered that party zone, and there's no going back. Enjoy.
Read today’s ticker and you will see the problems:
https://market-ticker.org/cgi-mt/akcs-www?post=251351
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