The US national debt has reached a record $37 trillion, according to the latest Treasury Department report released Tuesday. The milestone underscores the rapid growth of federal debt and the increasing financial burden on taxpayers.
The debt surpassed $37 trillion years ahead of pre-pandemic projections. In January 2020, the Congressional Budget Office projected the debt would not reach this level until after fiscal year 2030. However, the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020 led to heavy federal borrowing under then-President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden to stabilize the economy and support recovery.
More recent spending has also contributed. Earlier this year, Trump signed a Republican-backed tax cut and spending package into law, which the CBO estimates will add $4.1 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
Michael Peterson, chair and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said in a statement that government borrowing raises interest rates, “adding costs for everyone and reducing private sector investment. Within the federal budget, the debt crowds out important priorities and creates a damaging cycle of more borrowing, more interest costs, and even more borrowing.”
Wendy Edelberg, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, said Congress plays a key role in setting spending and revenue policy. She noted that the Republicans’ tax law “means that we’re going to borrow a lot over the course of 2026, we’re going to borrow a lot over the course of 2027, and it’s just going to keep going.”
The Government Accountability Office reports that rising national debt can lead to higher borrowing costs for mortgages and cars, lower wages due to reduced business investment, and higher prices for goods and services.
Peterson noted that debt milestones are “piling up at a rapid rate.” The US debt reached $34 trillion in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024, and $36 trillion in November 2024. “We are now adding a trillion more to the national debt every 5 months,” he said. “That’s more than twice as fast as the average rate over the last 25 years.”
The Joint Economic Committee estimates that, at the current daily growth rate, the debt will increase by another trillion dollars in about 173 days.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement that “hopefully this milestone is enough to wake up policymakers to the reality that we need to do something, and we need to do it quickly.”
