By Staff Reporter |
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) chairman, Republican Rep. David Schweikert (AZ-01), says the government’s inaction on the $40 trillion national debt is “immoral.”
The JEC leader issued a statement on Thursday after the national debt reached a new record high of more than $40 trillion. This fiscal year, the U.S. added more than $2.4 trillion to the national debt. The JEC noted in its press release that interest payments on the national debt make up the fourth-largest line item in the federal budget.
Schweikert said the debt posed “a dangerous fiscal trajectory” that forecasts future economic demise as well as the reality that the national debt will consume most of federal spending.
“Our debt is quickly switching from sustainable, business as-usual, to an unsustainable, market-unraveling nightmare. At this rate, it won’t be long before we face catastrophic consequences,” said Schweikert. “Congress must take the math seriously and act now by charting a new economically responsible path to secure our nation’s future for generations to come. To do nothing or keep on this path is flat out immoral.”
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has defined that unsustainability as an economy growing at a much slower pace than the debt.
Rising federal debt will raise borrowing costs, such as for home and car loans; stagnate wages and curb investments; and increase the costs of goods and services overall, if not lead to shortages.
Deficits have only continued to grow despite the announced goals and promises from Trump administration leaders.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent established a substantial goal of deficit reduction: three percent of GDP by 2028. Deficits have grown. Bessent has said that the war in Iran, tariff refunds, and misappropriated tax cuts have been the main culprits behind stunted improvements to deficits.
The federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic represented unprecedented spending, as noted by the GAO in its page dedicated to federal debt and debt management.
One of President Donald Trump’s promises upon his initial election in 2016 was to eliminate the national debt within two terms. At the time, the national debt was more than $19 trillion.
The GAO projected in March that continued federal deficits will add an average of $2 trillion to the debt annually through 2036. If unchecked, debt will surpass $60 trillion.
Based on those projections the GAO has, like Schweikert, characterized the debt progression as an unsustainable fiscal path and urged Congress to develop a debt reduction strategy, which it had urged previously in 2020.
In its March publication, the GAO renewed its recommendations to Congress from 2020 as well as a recommendation from 2015 and 2020. The 2015 recommendation encouraged Congress to replace the current debt limit process with a clearer approach to link decisions on debt to decisions on revenue and spending.
The GAO also reported that the Department of the Treasury has increased the size and frequency of its debt auctions since fiscal year 2014. In fiscal year 2025, the GAO reported that the Treasury Department held more than 400 auctions of bills, notes, and bonds to borrow $1.9 trillion for government operations and refinance $9.1 trillion of maturing debt.
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