Monday, April 24, 2017

Debt is real Trump budget cruelty

The Detroit News reports:
In March, debt service payments were $7 billion higher than they were a year earlier, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and in the first six months of fiscal 2017, the year-over-year hike was $28 billion, or 22 percent, making it the largest category of increased federal spending.

CBO estimates that if interest rates rise just 1 percent over projections,$160 billion more each year will be required for debt service. That’s three times the amount Trump hopes to cut from targeted programs.

Inevitably, the national debt ceiling, reimposed last month, will have to be raised again this fall to keep feeding the federal leviathan.

The debt total has become so ridiculously out of reach that we’ve stopped seriously thinking about it. In President Barack Obama’s eight years, the national debt doubled, and yet that fiscal atrocity barely surfaced as an issue during last year’s presidential election.
The struggle against big government.