{"id":590904,"date":"2026-04-23T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=590904"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:40:00","slug":"39-going-on-40-trillion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=590904","title":{"rendered":"39 Going On 40 (Trillion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

39 Going On 40 (Trillion)<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Robert Aro via The Mises Institute,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A little over two weeks ago, on April 7th, the U.S. national debt crossed\u00a0$39 trillion<\/a>. Since then, another\u00a0$150 billion<\/a>\u00a0has already been added to the ledger. While major news outlets missed the milestone, every trillion is worthy of mention.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) put the figure in\u00a0perspective<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

America is now $39,000,000,000,000 in debt\u2014yes, $39 trillion. It took roughly 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion. Now we add that in a matter of months<\/strong>\u2026 Compounding the problem, we now spend more than $1 trillion a year just on interest to service our debt\u2014more than the entire defense budget.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Almost three years ago, I wrote about the U.S. debt crossing the\u00a0$32 trillion<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0$33 trillion<\/a>\u00a0marks. If there\u2019s one economic projection to stand by, it\u2019s this: within the next several months, the $40 trillion debt level will be breached.<\/p>\n

Looking back at the last 200 years, or even the last three, it becomes clear that debt growth is not linear; the curve is moving up exponentially.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the future is always uncertain, the trajectory is unmistakable.<\/p>\n

One reason stands above the rest: the interest on the debt itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For context, net interest outlays were equivalent to 22.1% of total revenues through\u00a0Q1 of FY 2026<\/a>. Even if the national debt were frozen at $39 trillion today, the interest payments alone would be staggering. With the 10-year Treasury yield hovering between\u00a04% and 4.5%<\/a>\u00a0at the time of writing, and annual interest surpassing $1 trillion, solvency should be a real concern.<\/p>\n

Naturally, one might argue that with a Federal Reserve, solvency is not a concern. However, that\u2019s the crux of the matter. America technically won\u2019t become insolvent thanks to the Fed\u2019s ability to create money (literally) out of thin air, and so, the final outcome is certain. Expanding debt and the accompanying expansion of the money supply are features of the system. History shows that monetary inflation, currency debasement, and the eventual\u00a0crack-up boom<\/a>\u00a0are the recurring final outcomes.<\/p>\n

Couple the interest problem with global conflict and the endless crisis response cycle of political outlays, and it\u2019s fair to say that Congress has as much appetite for cutting spending as they do for ending the Federal Reserve<\/strong><\/p>\n

39 going on $40 trillion is an achievement only in the sense that many once thought we\u2019d never see numbers this large. Over forty years ago, during the Reagan administration, the debt tripled from\u00a0$1 trillion<\/a>\u00a0to $3 trillion, and life went on. Applying that same logic today and accounting for exponential growth, we are talking about $40 trillion becoming $120 trillion in our lifetime.<\/p>\n

The idea of $50 trillion, $60 trillion, or even $80 trillion seems absurd, but history gives us no reason to assume a ceiling exists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I still wouldn\u2019t bet against America; the U.S. dollar persists largely because liberty and freedom still mean something in the USA, and the greenback remains the cleanest shirt in the dirty pile. But that doesn\u2019t change the fact that life could be better for almost everyone. That is everyone except those who continue to steer society down a path Austrians have warned about for generations.<\/p>\n

The debt clock keeps ticking. <\/strong>The numbers keep rising. And while life will go on, we must ask: what kind of life will it be? And for whom?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nThu, 04\/23\/2026 – 14:40<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

39 Going On 40 (Trillion) Authored by Robert Aro via The Mises Institute, A little over two weeks ago, on April 7th, the U.S. national debt crossed\u00a0$39 trillion. Since then, another\u00a0$150 billion\u00a0has already been added to the ledger. While major news outlets missed the milestone, every trillion is worthy of mention. House Budget Chairman Jodey… Continue reading 39 Going On 40 (Trillion)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":590898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/590898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}