According to the Congressional Budget Office, “the federal debt is set to explode over the next decade even as the budget deficit is projected to reach its lowest level of the Obama presidency.” McClatchy D.C.,
The annual deficit should total $468 billion for the 2015 fiscal year, which will end Sept. 30, the nonpartisan budget office said. That’s a tad better than the $483 billion in fiscal 2014, and it amounts to about 2.6 percent of the overall economy, the smallest percentage since 2007 and just a hair under the 50-year average.
The improving deficit numbers are temporary, however. Budget deficits are projected to begin going up again in 2018, and to nearly double by 2024…
Every year’s deficit adds to the debt, which already stands at $18 trillion by one measure and which would be much higher if not for the historically low costs of borrowing, which have allowed the U.S. government to retire or roll over debt with unusually low costs. Think of it as the government refinancing existing debt…
The federal government is expected to spend $277 billion on interest on the debt in the current fiscal year. That’s projected to soar to $827 billion by 2025. As a percentage of the economy, it would more than double from 1.3 percent in 2015 to 3 percent in 2025.
Leave a Reply