The U.S. national debt exceeded $33 trillion for the first time ever on Monday, crossing a critical milestone at a time when government spending is already under scrutiny.
The national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — surged to roughly $33.04 trillion as of Monday afternoon, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. By comparison, just four decades ago, the national debt hovered around $907 billion.
"The United States has hit a new milestone that no one will be proud of: our gross national debt just surpassed $33 trillion," said Maya MacGuineas, the president of CRFB. "Debt held by the public, meanwhile, recently surpassed $26 trillion. We are becoming numb to these huge numbers, but it doesn’t make them any less dangerous."The unrelenting increase is what prompted Fitch Ratings to issue a surprise downgrade of the nation's long-term credit score in early August. The agency cut the U.S. debt by one notch, snatching away its pristine AAA rating in exchange for an AA+ grade. In making the decision, Fitch cited alarm over the country's deteriorating finances and expressed concerns over the government's ability to address the ballooning debt burden amid sharp political divisions.
"This is a warning shot across the U.S. government's bow that it needs to right its fiscal ship," Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida, told FOX Business. "You can't just spend trillions of dollars more than you have in revenue every year and expect no ill consequences."
The outlook for the federal debt level is bleak, with economists increasingly sounding the alarm over the torrid pace of spending by Congress and the White House.
The latest findings from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that the national debt will nearly double in size over the next three decades. At the end of 2022, the national debt grew to about 97% of gross domestic product. Under current law, that figure is expected to skyrocket to 181% at the end of 2053 — a debt burden that will far exceed any previous level.
