Incomprehensible.
Headline this week at the Associated Press.
The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion.”
The problem with “trillion” is that it’s incomprehensible. Trillion is a number that in more sane times was used for expressing the distances in miles between galaxies. It’s a number so huge, so out of the realm of ordinary experience, that when we hear it, it just bounces off.
Yet, it’s a number now used routinely when discussing the finances of the United States.
To grasp the significance of debt expressed in increments of a trillion we must do the equivalent of what they taught us in math class about simplifying fractions. We must reduce numbers on this scale to terms we can comprehend.
So, here’s my attempt at such reduction in the hope of getting to the place where discussion of our national debt doesn’t just bounce off.
In May 2023 I wrote in this space about the debate in Congress regarding the urgent need to raise the U.S. legal debt limit from what was at the time $31.4 trillion. That was, as I write this, 1,204 days ago.
We’re now at $40 trillion – an increase of $8.6 trillion. (Now be honest, that bounced off, too, didn’t it?)
So, let’s try this. What that $8.6 trillion increase in just 1,204 days means is that the U.S. government has spent more money than it has taken in – and covered that spending with borrowing – at the rate of roughly $83,000 per second.
To give some proper perspective on that statistic, consider that the median annual U.S. household income is roughly $83,000 per year. Wrap your head around the fact that the U.S. government borrows as much in a single second as the typical American household makes in an entire year.
Now consider this. If you listen to this essay on the air at KTBB, borrowing money at this rate means that from the time I start until I finish, the U.S. will have borrowed another $17.4 million. That’s nearly five times as much as the typical American household will earn in a 45-year working lifetime.
To be brutally fair, we must clearly state that administrations of both parties are guilty as sin on this. And to be brutally accurate, we must further state that the problem is not because of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill or “tax cuts for the rich,” much as Democrats will try to make you believe it is. Tax revenues rise every year.
And no, we can’t “DOGE” our way out of it. Totally eliminating waste and fraud – something that will never happen – won’t solve the problem.
The problem is that the two biggest drivers of our deficit spending – and they are really big – are Social Security and Medicare.
That makes two things true. First, painful, unpopular decisions about these “third rail” programs are looming, like it or not. And second, it’s on us and us alone.
Politicians are not going to solve our spending problem if we continue to insist on not letting them.
This is terrible
The U.S. national debt is owed to a mix of domestic and foreign investors, government trust funds, and the U.S. Federal Reserve, who hold U.S. Treasury securities. Roughly 80% is debt held by the public (individuals, corporations, and foreign governments), while the remaining 20% is intragovernmental debt owed to federal accounts like Social Security.
Judging from the above, and I assume the information is more or less true, then most of this 40 trillion debt amounts to money we owe ourselves in one form or another.
This 40 trillion represents promises politicians made to us in order to get elected. The fault in great part is ours in electing such people, most of whom, apart from the current crop, are now long out of office and/or dead. So, we are stuck with this massive of our own making.
I recall a conversation I had with a best friend when we were in college roundabout 1970. I predicted that welfare spending, and I include things such as Social Security, would eclipse the nation’s biggest budget item, national defense, and leave it starved for money.
There is no way to tax ourselves out of the situation. Eventually reality will impose itself and we almost certainly will not like the shape of that reality.
Below, find my assessment of how we arrived at 40 trillion in debt.
Some history: Between 1970 and 1993, NAFTA was introduced every couple of years and voted down repeatedly. Democrats always voted No and Republicans yes!
In the 70s, federal and State Governments promoted “Public Private Ventures; pushing Socialism by legislation, spreading the wealth “upward.” This will become important later for government to keep the economy from going under!
In 1983, John Naisbett wrote Megatrends, a New York bestseller. In his book, he wrote that the US economy would change from an Industrial-Based Economy to an Information-Based Economy.
Reading that alarmed me because I knew that an Information-Based economy will NOT create NEW MONEY, while our Industrial-Based Economy did! I know that to create “new money” you have to GROW, MINE, OR PRODUCE A PRODUCT, for a PROFIT!
*Bill Clinton took office Jan 20, 1993. NAFTA was promptly put on the Congressional agenda, and a majority of Democrats changed their vote to YES, joining the Republicans. Both NAFTA and GATT were passed, and Bill Clinton signed them into law!
Now some statistics: In 1983, there were approximately 18.5 million manufacturing jobs in the United States.
In 2026, there were approximately 12.6 million industrial jobs in the United States. A loss of 5.9 million industrial jobs!
The National Debt in 1983 was 2.5 Trillion Dollars. The National Debt today, in 2026, is $40 trillion. A $ 37.5 trillion increase in our National Debt!
Summing up: 1983, 18.5 million industrial jobs and 2.5 Trillion Dollars of National Debt! 2026, 12.6 million industrial jobs and 40 Trillion Dollars of National Debt and growing!
As I look back at the Government push for “Public Private Ventures”, I realized that, to keep the US economy from going into a Recession or worse, a depression, it had to infuse money into our economy. When Public-Private-Government Projects didn’t pump enough money into our local, State, and federal economies, the Federal Reserve started printing money, and the Federal Government put in IOUs!
President Trump’s MAGA agenda has “rebuilding our industrial base” as its backbone. The President has done a lousy job of explaining “why” industrial growth is so vital to ALL our economic well-being.
The last 43 years of running the country on a Credit Card is going to take more than Trump’s term in office to dig us out of the hole we are in!
The Socialists smell blood and have brought their A game to voters! It is our responsibility to educate the “unsuspecting” voters about their Socialist agenda! We have a little over 60 days to come up with a coherent message the voters can understand!
Food for thought, Mr. Gleiser.
Larrey
Makes one sick to think about this.
Years ago China figured out that if they could manage to destroy the network that makes America the greatest nation on earth they would inherit the throne. They are well on the way, and with substantial assistance from members of the democratic party (hello, Eric Swallwell, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsome!) Many Americans are able to use credit properly and understand the debt MUST be paid at some point. Using credit to finance the things we WANT instead of the things we NEED leads to trouble EVERY time! Spending money you took from someone else is easy. Spending your own is different.
It seemed a digital currency, to be the solution to the U.S. 40 trillion-dollar debt, was banned: however, the digital currency is not dead but now more active, more regulated, and more integrated into global finance. Go figure.
“Well! I would say we are in quite a pickle. There is no one answer to this “pickle” problem we are in. I’m not one who would even attempt to say how to possibly fix this.
However, I will say this. Here’s my analogy. (You all know I like a good analogy!) Here goes. Our beautiful and great America is like a handful of soldiers standing on the wall with their spears and arrows waiting for the thousands of soldiers on the outside ready to storm our gates to get in and destroy us. All our enemies are on the outside as well as the inside!!!!!
Pray people for you to be able to do your part in this battle. Oh, by the way, let’s pray for and support our President Trump.
As I understand it, many years ago there was plenty of money from Social Security, so much so that Congress kept dipping into that fund. Now, when we Boomers are due, we hear “Jeez, there seems to be no money, so deal with it”. This will get even worse should the Democrats cheat their was back into power.
You are so right, Linda. Oh, did anyone ever look for that “lock box” that Al Gore always talked about?