Last year, our national debt increased by $484 billion. At the same time, we paid $430 billion in interest. Now, because the debt increase was much higher than the interest due, we had to borrow $430 billion to cover the interest payments. On top of all that we had to take on an additional $54 billion dollars to cover the rest of our spending.
This is a bad situation since we are now creating even more debt to pay for the prior debt. This is a death spiral. If we continue on this way, our debt will start to grow exponentially; making it very difficult to recover without extreme cuts in federal spending and high increases in taxes for everyone.
If you think this is bad, just imagine what Greece is going through.
References:
Historical Federal Receipt and Outlay Summary: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm
Greece faces tough conditions under deal with euro zone: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/13/us-eurozone-greece-idUSKBN0P40EO20150713
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