Elon Musk, the richest person in the world and currently leading the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has shared his views on the rising national debt of the United States. In an effort to raise awareness about the debt, he has received some backlash suggesting that Trump's first term as President of the United States added about $8 trillion to the total debt.
Payments of interest by the U.S. government are reported to have surged to their highest level since 1990. Treasury spending accounted for $882 billion in net interest in the fiscal year ending in September. Interest costs have been added up and are now at $27.7 trillion, isn't this alarming?
Musk sounds the alarm about national debt
Musk in a post on X wrote that a large percentage of the population is unaware that there is something called national debt. He tries to inform that most people do not even realize how big this issue can be. He added that the country's interest payments now exceed the amount they spend on the military.
The head of DOGE emphasized that only a small percentage of the population understands that excessive government spending causes inflation. He even shared a clip in which Marc Andreessen stated that "The federal government currently pays more interest on the debt than we spend in the budget for the Department of Defense."
Andreessen in the clip also mentioned that the U.S. pays $1.2 billion a year just in interest on the debt while total government spending is about $7 trillion. However, the total debt is about $35 trillion and increases by $1 trillion every 100 days.
A user reminded him of the debt that Trump added during his term. He pointed out that the elected president added $8 trillion to the debt during his first term and taxpayers are still paying interest on that debt. Even then, Trump is still looking to add more tax cuts supposedly for the wealthy, and that too inevitably adds to the debt.
Can DOGE overcome this?
U.S. interest payments have surged reportedly due to soaring budget deficits from increased spending on Social Security and Medicare, and COVID-related expenses. However, the country has seen revenue constraints from the tax cuts in 2017. Ultimately, the spike in interest rates is also putting additional pressure on impacting the financial markets.
Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have promoted their newly established DOGE to cut federal spending by $500 billion annually. They even outlined a plan focusing on cutting wasteful spending and misallocated expenses not intended by Congress. Meanwhile, their bold claims about reducing spending have faced skepticism.
Musk previously proposed a higher target of saving $2 trillion, but experts consider this ambitious. This comes after considering that a large part of the U.S. budget is tied up in mandatory spending for Social Security, Medicare, and defense.
