The 21 trillion dollar
national debt which of course is now
closer to 21.2 trillion and
rising rapidly - the problem there is not
just the enormity of the debt but the
cost of financing it.
One of the
things that candidate Trump promised was
to take advantage of these ultra-low
long-term interest rates by locking them
in and moving the debt more towards
long-term rates. Well, he actually did the
opposite as President. He's actually
shortened the maturity even shorter. We're relying even more heavily now on
short-term financing than ever before.
But as interest rates are rising the
cost of servicing this debt is exploding
and that is one of the principal drivers
of the deficits now being over
a trillion dollars a year is the extra
cost of paying the interest on the money
that we've already borrowed. Not the
money we're borrowing now to fund the
current deficit but the money we have to
constantly borrow
to fund the 21 trillion of debt that we
already have.
So this is not a
disaster for the future this is a
disaster that we're gonna be dealing
with in the here and now.