The US national debt is rising at a blistering pace.
New data from the Treasury Department shows the nation’s outstanding debt jumped from $33.990 trillion on January 2nd of this year to $34.866 trillion on July 2nd.
That’s an increase of over $876 billion in a matter of six months.
The US government’s surging debt burden has caught the attention of former Secretary of State and ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo.
In a new post on the Washington-based nonprofit American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Pompeo says that the country’s ballooning debt is now a threat to national security.
Pompeo cites data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a non-partisan federal agency, warning that the budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year is estimated to hit $2 trillion – $300 billion larger than the $1.7 trillion deficit witnessed last year.
“Our national debt was 97.3% of our national GDP last year; in ten years, the CBO now estimates that it will balloon to 122% of GDP. We will literally have more debt as a nation than the total wealth of our economy – the largest, most dynamic and powerful in the world – is able to produce.”
The former Secretary of State says the country’s record-high debt level would likely lead to dollar deterioration and open the doors for US rivals to gain more influence on the global stage.
“Persistent high debt, interest rates, and inflation can combine to weaken the value of the U.S. dollar in the long run – a disastrous outcome that would only benefit America’s adversaries in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran as they seek to recenter the global economy away from the United States.”
Pompeo highlights that no business or country, regardless of size, is immune to the lethal effect of operating on deficits.
“This is a fundamental truth: no matter how big or wealthy a business may be, running deficits only leads to failure. Our federal government has forgotten this essential truth. We must wake up to the threat America’s mounting national debt poses to the future of our country before it is too late.”
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