By Ben Ritz
A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that the amount of money spent by the federal government each year to service our national debt is on track to reach unprecedented highs within the next 10 years. These findings should give Congressional Democrats renewed urgency to pass a reconciliation bill that reduces federal budget deficits before the political window for action closes later this summer.
The good news is that the 2022 edition of the CBO’s annual Budget and Economic Outlook, published Wednesday, showed this year’s federal budget deficit falling dramatically from its $3.1 trillion peak in 2020. The decline was due almost entirely to the expiration of stimulus programs created to shepherd the economy through the COVID pandemic, and the rapid economic growth those programs helped facilitate. But these stimulus measures also came at a cost: They both increased our national debt and contributed to higher rates of inflation, which the Federal Reserve is now rapidly raising interest rates to combat.
