The House held the first in a series of hearings on “Why Debt Matters,” to identify solutions to a national debt that currently stands at $17.548 trillion, or roughly $55,000 per American.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), cited the latest CBO projections in painting a dire picture for economic growth.
The report found that tax revenue would remain high over the next 10 years above 18 percent of GDP. However, the federal government will spend $48 trillion “maintaining spending levels over 1.6 percentage points above historical levels.”
Meanwhile, mandatory spending will exceed 62 percent of the federal budget, and interest payments on the debt will double in the coming decade, to nearly 15 percent.
“While we can put our heads in the sand for a few years and talk about declining deficits, the demographic freight train caused by baby boomers is still coming,” said David Cote, the chairman and CEO Honeywell, a Fortune 100 technology and manufacturing company.
“In 2025 we’ll be spending $1 trillion a year just in interest,” he said. “So how do you put $1 trillion into perspective? If you had spent a million dollars a day since Jesus Christ was born, 2,013 years ago, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars, and that will be our annual interest bill. It’s unconscionable.”
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