The national debt surpassed $38 trillion on Tuesday, according to the Treasury Department, reaching a new milestone just over two months after it hit the $37 trillion mark. That’s the fastest the gross national debt has increased by $1 trillion aside from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rapid rise is largely the result of delayed borrowing while the Treasury was employing extraordinary measures to prevent a breach of the debt limit earlier this year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for deficit reduction.
“It’s tough to decide what the most appalling part is of today’s announcement from the Treasury: that we surpassed an unprecedented $38 trillion in gross national debt; that we’ll likely hit the next milestone in just a matter of months; or that we are getting this news amid a government shutdown with seemingly no end in sight,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.
The Trump administration says it is tackling the annual budget deficit. A new analysis by the Treasury Department says that the deficit from April to September totaled $468 billion. “This is the lowest reading since 2019 and is down nearly 40% from the comparable period last year when [President Joe] Biden was spending recklessly,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a post on X.
The administration says revenues are rising and spending has been curbed. “During his first eight months in office, President Trump has reduced the deficit by $350 billion compared to the same period in 2024 by cutting spending and boosting revenue,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.