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Sanders Rips Lawmakers Saying 'We Don't Have the Money' While Backing $900 Billion for Military (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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"I think it's time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It's time to pay attention to the needs of working families."

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not arguing against you at all. I'm trying to understand your logic because it seems important to understand. Can you provide numbers and sources that show we are at the point of unsustainability? Is government interest about to match revenue so that we are near being unable to pay it? Or is there another reason we're at the point?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Because interest payments are already a big fraction of the budget! I only became aware of this reading this, which pegs it at 8-10%: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-department-government-efficiency

Other sources have it at 13%! https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/

Which equates to about $1 trillion a year, and rapidly rising: https://www.pgpf.org/article/what-is-the-national-debt-costing-us/

This is apocalyptic to me for two reasons:

Not only is our interest exceeding what we pay for Medicaid… it’s exceeding the 1T deficit itself. Think about that… we’re paying more in interest than we’re borrowing every year, and we’re borrowing to pay on that interest.
And that is going to compound. The chart above is a pre-Covid estimate, interest of that magnitude is going to rapidly dominate the budget.