The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Washington fumes over $40 trillion debt — perhaps lawmakers should meet the people who spent it

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BS BULLETIN

  • The national debt officially crossed $40 trillion this week — roughly double what it was when Barack Obama left office.
  • Washington politicians are expressing outrage, but Congress is still running nearly $2 trillion annual deficits.
  • Some fiscal hawks have proposed real restraints. Others condemning the debt have simultaneously voted for legislation projected to add trillions more.

The United States officially crossed a staggering new threshold this week: $40 trillion in national debt.

Naturally, Washington immediately filled with politicians expressing shock and outrage over this mysterious pile of debt that apparently sneaked into town while Congress wasn’t looking.

There is only one problem. Congress borrowed the money.

Treasury data showed gross federal debt reaching about $40.05 trillion on Aug. 18, nearly twice the $19.95 trillion recorded when President Barack Obama left office in January 2017. Debt held by the public — the economically more important measure — now stands at roughly $32.3 trillion.

Fox News analyst Guy Benson called the milestone “a disgrace,” adding a line that deserves attention from both sides: “Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party, Democrats are the fiscally insane party.”

Jonah Goldberg was even more direct: “Trump and Biden and Congress under both parties doubled the national debt in the last decade.”

Fair enough. But when lawmakers begin pounding tables about fiscal responsibility, there’s another question worth asking: What have you actually done to stop it?

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., declared Wednesday, “Congress needs to get spending under control and BALANCE THE BUDGET.” Unlike some of the suddenly alarmed, Scott does have proposals attached to his rhetoric. In February he introduced the Balanced Budget Responsibility Act, which would give a president additional authority to withhold certain spending while the government is running a deficit. He has also backed a constitutional balanced-budget amendment, the No Budget, No Pay Act and efforts against congressional earmarks.

But here’s where Washington gets Washington. Scott also voted yes for Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill. So did Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who responded to the $40 trillion milestone by warning that “American prosperity REQUIRES fiscal discipline.”

The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the 2025 reconciliation law will increase deficits by about $4.7 trillion from 2026 through 2035, after economic effects and added interest costs are included. Higher tariffs partially counteract that, with CBO estimating about $3 trillion in deficit reduction from those revenues, but the government’s overall fiscal trajectory remains firmly in the red.

That doesn’t mean every provision of the Republican bill was unnecessary or undesirable. It included tax policy, border enforcement, defense spending and reductions in Medicaid, SNAP and student-loan spending that Republicans argued were important priorities.

It does mean Washington can’t simultaneously tell taxpayers that a bill is worth borrowing for and then act mystified when the debt clock keeps spinning.

There is one prominent Republican critic who can fairly say he voted the other way. Sen. Rand Paul voted against Trump’s giant reconciliation package specifically because he believed it would increase deficits and because it raised the debt ceiling. At the time, Paul said, “The deficit will grow … that’s why I’m a no.”

Paul also introduced his Six Penny Plan, which proposes cutting six cents from every dollar of projected federal spending over five years with the goal of balancing the on-budget portion of the federal government. Whether Congress could politically stomach cuts that deep is another matter entirely — but at least it is an actual plan rather than an angry post on X.

And that’s where the $40 trillion story becomes much more uncomfortable than the partisan finger-pointing.

The federal government is expected to spend roughly $7.4 trillion in fiscal 2026 while collecting only about $5.6 trillion. CBO projects another deficit of approximately $1.9 trillion this year and warns that debt held by the public will climb from 101% of GDP this year to 120% by 2036 if current law broadly remains in place. Interest alone is becoming a monster. CBO projects net interest costs of roughly $1 trillion this year, climbing to more than $2 trillion annually by 2036.

This isn’t a problem Washington can solve by hunting down a few ridiculous grants, although it absolutely should hunt them down. The underlying mathematics increasingly revolve around Social Security, Medicare, other mandatory spending, taxes, defense and interest on debt already accumulated. Any politician promising to balance the budget while declaring every major component untouchable is selling arithmetic that doesn’t exist.

And the pace is accelerating. The Joint Economic Committee reported Aug. 7 that debt had increased roughly $2.88 trillion in just one year, an average increase of about $7.9 billion every day.

So yes, lawmakers are right to call $40 trillion a disgrace. The question for voters should be what comes immediately afterward: Show us your votes. Show us your budget. Show us what you’re willing to cut.

MY QUICK TAKE

Oh, this is rich.

The people in Washington have discovered the national debt. Forty trillion dollars! Can you believe it?! Who did this?!

Well, Senator, there’s a reasonably good chance the culprit has your parking space.

Congress is like a group of teenagers who spent the weekend ordering everything on Dad’s credit card and then gather around the statement Monday morning saying, “This is outrageous. Somebody has got to get this family spending under control.” Everybody’s a fiscal conservative once the bill arrives.

I’ll give Rand Paul credit here. You may love his Penny Plan, hate his Penny Plan or think Congress would spontaneously combust before passing it, but the man has repeatedly voted no and put an actual number on the table.

That’s different from the classic Washington routine: “THE DEBT IS DESTROYING OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE!” Then the clerk says, “Senator, your spending bill is ready.” “Fantastic. Put me down as a yes.”

Rick Scott has offered genuine balanced-budget proposals too, and that deserves acknowledgment. But if you’re going to vote for a major bill that CBO says increases deficits, don’t be surprised when somebody pulls out the receipts while you’re yelling about $40 trillion.

And this isn’t simply a Republican problem. Democrats spent spectacularly under Biden, Republicans spent spectacularly under Trump, and every election Washington tells us the other fellow is the drunken sailor.

At some point you begin to notice one thing: The sailor keeps changing. The bar tab never does.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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