Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is sounding the alarm on America’s rapidly expanding debt.
New numbers from the Treasury Department show the national debt jumped from $32.332 trillion on June 30th to $32.608 trillion on July 31st, marking an increase of more than $276 billion in a month.
In a new Bloomberg Television interview, Paulson, who served as Treasury Secretary between 2006 to 2009 under George W. Bush, says that the fiscal trajectory of the country is “concerning.”
According to Paulson, the US has the financial capacity to pay off its swelling debt levels, but the country must find solutions to change the existing trend.
“We’re a rich country, and we’ve got time to deal with it. But we need to do some things in the next few years to change that trajectory.”
In June, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said that the United States is on track to significantly outrun gross domestic product (GDP) growth en route to accumulating $143.895 trillion in debt within three decades.
Paulson says that the country must figure out a way to contain its soaring debt burden sooner rather than later.
“The longer we wait, the more painful the solution will be… It’s going to take doing things on both the spending side and the revenue side. We’re going to need more revenue. And we’re going to need to figure out how to deal with some difficult issues in areas like entitlements.”
As of August 3rd, the federal debt stands at $32.604 trillion.
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