The national debt topped $39 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, according to figures released by the Treasury Department. The new milestone comes less than five months after the debt reached $38 trillion. Debt held by the public, which excludes intragovernmental borrowing, is now more than $31 trillion.
“No matter what metric one chooses to examine our fiscal trajectory, we are clearly headed in the wrong direction,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which promotes deficit reduction. “Higher debt exacerbates inflationary pressures, squeezes out investment in our economy, allows interest costs to dominate our defense spending, leaves us vulnerable to emergencies and geopolitical turmoil, and could even provoke a fiscal crisis.”
Fatima Hussein of the Associated Press notes that the record debt total “highlights competing administration priorities, from passing a massive tax law and boosting defense spending and immigration enforcement to chipping away at the debt itself — the latter of which Donald Trump promised to do as both a candidate and as president.”