National Debt Reaches $33 Trillion; Adds $1 Trillion to Debt in 3 Months

The gross national debt of the United States surpassed $33 trillion on Friday, just months after the federal government’s gross debt eclipsed $32 trillion on June 15, 2023.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: 

The United States has hit a new milestone that no one will be proud of: our gross national debt just surpassed $33 trillion. 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 Congressional Budget Office confirmed just last week that the underlying deficit is going to roughly double from last fiscal year to this one. Instead of hearing about solutions, we hear promises of which programs our leaders are unwilling to touch and which taxes they are unwilling to raise. That kind of talk is not only pandering, but it’s also downright irresponsible when we have a mess like this on our hands.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act was a step in the right direction, but getting the debt under control will require taking a serious look at health care, Social Security, and the tax code. If policymakers find it too difficult to do this under regular order, then they should put in place a bipartisan fiscal commission to propose solutions.

Policymakers need to be straight with the American public, and they need to come together on a plan to bring our debt under control.

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For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org.