US national debt tops $40T after doubling in a decade

An electronic display shows the national debt in Washington, D.C.

(Image credit: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

The U.S. gross national debt on Wednesday hit $40 trillion for the first time, just five months after reaching $39 trillion. The new debt figure is an “ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs” and, especially since last year, President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, The New York Times said.

The “federal government’s IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade,” from $19.95 trillion when Trump was first sworn in, Reuters said. Much of that debt funded the Covid-19 response, including $8.4 trillion added under former President Joe Biden. But Trump has also “largely ignored the dwindling number of fiscal hawks in his Republican Party,” and his “landmark second-term” tax-and-spending bill “will add another $4.7 trillion in debt.”

The bipartisan “inability of lawmakers to confront the debt comes with long-term risks,” the Times said. The “best-case scenario” in an “unsustainable” fiscal trajectory, said Margaret Spellings of the Bipartisan Policy Center in a statement. “AI disruption, a recession, global war or any number of other events could quickly push us over the edge from a challenge into a full-blown crisis.”