Politics

CBO: Interest on the federal debt alone will be $880 BILLION in ten years

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The fastest growing item in the budget is the net interest payment to the nation’s creditors, according to Republican staff on the Senate Budget Committee.

With a current federal debt of about $17.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office projects that in 2014 taxpayers will foot the bill for $233 billion in interest payments alone. By 2024, the CBO believes that those payments will nearly quadruple to $880 billion.

“Every dollar spent paying our creditors is a dollar wasted — money for which we get nothing in return. Interest payments threaten to crowd out every other budget item,” GOP Senate Budget Committee staff write in a memo released Wednesday.

To put the $880 billion 2024 projection in perspective, the committee staff broke down current spending on other budget items:

Federal Courts – $7.4 billion

Department of Education – $56.7 billion

Secret Service – $1.8 billion

Food Inspection – $2.3 billion

Census Bureau – $1.0 billion

Border Patrol – $12.3 billion

National Parks – $3.0 billion

NASA – $17.6 billion

Centers for Disease Control – $7.1 billion

Federal Prison System – $6.9 billion

Workplace Safety Inspections – $0.9 billion

Immigration and Customs Enforcement – $5.6 billion

FDA – $2.6 billion

Federal Highway Budget – $40.4 billion

Coast Guard – $10.0 billion

Small Business Loans – $0.9 billion

Veterans’ Health Care – $55.3 billion

FBI – $8.3 billion

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The committee staff note that, in addition to overtaking the federal budget, the payments could “threaten to plunge the nation into fiscal crisis.”

“Even a modest rise in interest rates could lead to a financial emergency, with the U.S. facing a dangerous spiral of rising interest costs and increased borrowing to finance those interest costs,” they speculate.

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