Posted on 05/29/2026 10:15:20 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The U.S. national debt has crossed an ominous threshold, rising above 100 percent of national gross domestic product, or GDP. This is the first time since World War II that debt has been so high a percentage of national economic output.
That is a big problem because the federal debt undermines the value of the U.S. dollar and diverts investment from the wealth-creating private sector. The rising debt and its pressure on the nation’s economy will force the federal government and Federal Reserve, the latter led by newly confirmed chair Kevin Warsh, to make hard decisions they have put off for decades.
Many among the public will suffer as a result, especially the elderly, who rely on Social Security and Medicare.
GDP is the total amount of spending in the nation’s economy. At the end of March, federal debt held by the public was $31.265 trillion, and GDP in 2025 was $31.216 trillion.
The rise of debt-to-GDP is accelerating because the federal budget is structurally unsound. The government “is spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects in revenue, and the budget deficit this year is projected at $1.9 trillion,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Over the past two decades, the annual federal budget deficit has expanded far beyond what was normal from 1950 to 2007, which was about 25-45 percent. The federal debt quadrupled from 1970 to 1990, tripled from 1990 to 2000, and has doubled in each decade throughout this century.
Federal revenue has continued to increase. The problem is that spending is rising much more rapidly, pushing the annual budget deficit up to almost 6 percent of GDP, accelerating the increase in the national debt. As a result, the debt-rise trendline is becoming much steeper.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
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Hold my beer!
I understand that if the government would stop the fraud in its programs it could balance the budget. I hope those in government who are opposed to ICE, DOGE and any investigation or criminal charges for fraud of fraud are telling their children and grandchildren that they will have to deal with unsustainable debt in the future.
We could cut spending and raise taxes. Better yet - START taxes on those takers who pay no taxes. But this won’t happen.
Maybe we can do what the government did after WWII when the debt exceeded the GDP: lower interest rates and increase inflation by over 500%.
Or maybe we can just kick the can on down the road.
I guess its not that scary because neither Democrats nor Republicans give a crap about it. Both parties give silly, unserious solutions to solve the deficit like taxing the rich or getting rid of fraud. The only way to get rid of the deficit and pay down the debt is to seriously cut back middle class entitlements. Or, if the country really wants this level of entitlements, the country needs to enact a large middle class tax increase.
Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid are now the largest single budget item, and the cost will exponentially increase from now on due to demographics.
Every Western economy has the same problem.
Cloward-Piven is unavoidable thanks to government entitlements.
Stop all foreign aid.
Take the U.S. federal debt and divide it by the number of working Americans, and you come up with a number somewhere around $215,000 per person. This means the typical married couple in America is carrying the equivalent of a mortgage debt -- with no home to show for it.
This country is desperate for people from Third World dumps who think this is a good deal.
“Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid are now the largest single budget item”
A lot of people are in denial about this fact.
I agree, however that won’t help much. I understand every little bit helps but we need to seriously cut everywhere. I think a 30% cut in every department might help a little. I actually wish DOGE would have went that route where they said, “all right everybody we’re cutting 30% of the departments you choose who to get rid of you choose how to cut the 30%”. I think it would’ve worked.
Perhaps not, but I hate giving money to people who hate us. So, it’s a feel-good gesture.
Scary considering a declining population.
It wouldn’t have worked because DOGE did not possess the constitutional or statutory authority to unilaterally cut department budgets.
I assume that the excess spending is FEDERAL spending & & I also assume that much of that is unnecessary if someone would just sit down & take a hard look at it.
Well the world could somehow go back to a gold standard and destroy the value of the US Dollar causing horrible inflation. Or the world could go crypto-currency based on some physical commodity.
Of the US could just grow its GDP dramatically to help reduce the negative aspects of the issue. But that would require changes in federal spending patterns and lots of pro-business and pro-export regulatory changes.
How about all the fraud? That would balance the budget in a few years!
Time to Add $1 Billion to the U.S. National Debt
Answer: At the current average growth rate, adding $1 billion to the national debt would take about 18.5 minutes.
I might last 2 hours. (about 7 shots)
No worries the Band is still playing...
The on‑board band of the RMS Titanic continued to play as the ship sank.
Funny how most of the debt is fraudulent.
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