We are near $1 trillion of interest on the debt. That’s only interest, excluding social security, Medicare, domestic and defense spending. The interest on the debt will surpass defense spending in a year, and with interest rate spikes it will only worsen.
We have lost the debate on cutting spending. The largest drivers of our debt benefit mostly one generation: baby boomers. Baby boomers hate spending cuts, obviously because they stand to lose the most and they benefit greatly from paper wealth (asset prices, government goodies, and inflationary markets that sometimes benefit the first receivers). That’s just how it is, I’m not targeting boomers.
Our spending is very painful for post generations. Not only will Gen Z, millennials and later generations have to pay it back, the most harmful consequences is the nature of our spending: difficult to plan for a family, inability to support a family on one income given destruction of the dollar and purchasing power, horrific and unsafe infrastructure, dreams of homeownership crushed, student debt ballooning and hard to get out of.
It has become so bad that you can not get a new car. New car payments are more reflective of mortgage payments, today. On average a monthly car note is about $750.
We are in decline and going out the same way other superpowers have. Add this to the moral decay in our country and you have a country boomers don’t recognized. The parents of the boomers handed over a great country on the right track. It’s been in decline ever since they handed over power.