Bloomberg: U.S. Debt Interest Bill Soars Past $1 Trillion a Year

The combination of high levels of debt and higher interest rates has pushed the annualized interest cost of government debt past $1 trillion, an analysis from Bloomberg showed Tuesday.

This amounts to a doubling of interest costs over the past 19 months, according to Bloomberg. It is the equivalent of 15.9 percent of the Federal budget for fiscal year 2022.

Bloomberg reports:

The worsening metrics may reignite debate about the US fiscal path amid heavy borrowing from Washington. That dynamic has already helped drive up bond yields, threatened the return of the so-called bond vigilantes and led Fitch Ratings to downgrade US government debt in August.

“There will be further increases to Treasury coupon auctions and T-bills outstanding going forward,” Bloomberg Intelligence strategists Ira Jersey and Will Hoffman wrote in a research note. “Besides deficits of over $2 trillion in the foreseeable future, climbing maturities following the increase of issuance from March 2020 will also need to be refinanced.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cumulative deficit for the 2024–2033 period will total $20.2 trillion, or 6.1 percent of GDP. Deficits are expected to be at least 5.5 percent of GDP every year for the coming decade. Since 1973, the federal government budget deficit has averaged 3.6 percent of GDP.