All week, political pundits have been predicting who will score more points tonight on abortion, immigration, inflation, Israel, and Ukraine. What will Trump say? How will Harris respond?
Personally, I don’t know what they’ll say. But I definitely know what they won’t say. Neither candidate will mention the national debt.
I’m certain of this because both parties have, at various times, either added to our $35 trillion debt or ignored it. Usually, one party is doing the adding while the other is doing the ignoring.
That’s why I’m certain neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump will mention the obscene amount of money this nation owes. And it is obscene. The best way to illustrate that is with a question: How would you like a check for $104,000? Well, everyone in the United States, from the youngest to the oldest, would receive that amount if you divided our $35 trillion debt by the 336 million of us who live here.
It’s worse than you think
Here are some other awful stats, courtesy of my conversation with Debt.com’s social media manager…
If you didn’t catch some of those numbers, let me repeat and expand on the scary stats: Our $35 trillion national debt was nearly 124% of our nominal GDP in June 2024. That means we owe more than the total market value of all the goods and services our economy is producing.
The last time we had a balanced budget was 2001. But we still had debt – we just weren’t adding to it that year. The last time the United States had no debt? Before the Civil War, in 1835. Andrew Jackson was president.
It’s not what it seems
In 2011, mega-entrepreneur Warren Buffett said, “The United States is not going to have a debt crisis as long as we keep issuing our debts in our own currency.”
He’s right. Unlike the Americans that Debt.com counsels about their debt, the nation isn’t bankrupt. The reason is simple: Unlike you or me, the United States can print money and raise taxes.
The problem is that average Americans take reassurances from experts like Buffett and assume there’s nothing to worry about. That’s just not true.
As of July 2024, it costs $956 billion just to maintain our $35 trillion debt. That debt service represents $2,765 for every adult and child in the country. It’s also 17% of the total federal spending in fiscal year 2024.
Imagine what else we could do with that money. How many low-income homes could be built? What taxes could be lowered? What infrastructure improvements could be made?
Another serious problem is one we’re all familiar with. Once you start running up debt, it becomes harder and harder to quit. To state it mathematically, It took from that last in-the-black year of 1835 until 2022 for the national debt to surpass $30 trillion. It took less than two years to add another $5 trillion.
Where does it end? When does it stop? Both candidates should warn us about that debt tonight. Neither will, even with 35 trillion reasons.
