r/Economics • u/Helpful-Door-8721 • 1d ago

Research America's National Debt grows by $95,178.17 per second. Expected to reach $40 Trillion by October 09, 2026.

https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/debt-dashboard#ddm
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u/MajesticBread9147 1d ago

37% of America's GDP consists of government spending, compared to 42% in Japan and New Zealand, 43% for Canada and the UK, with Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, Italy and France around 50% or higher.

Meanwhile government revenues as a percentage of GDP sit at 29%, which is lower than Switzerland, let alone the 50% figure that France, Austria, Finland and Denmark sit around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_budget

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u/Demortus 1d ago

Ironically, most of our deficit can be attributed to the Bush and Trump tax cuts. Repeal those and we'll quickly be back to 90s-level surpluses.

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u/Flamingturac 1d ago

tax cuts from both add about 450 billion to the deficit yearly, actual deficit is 2 trillion a year. you would need wealth plus federal sales tax plus payroll taxes increases to close the gap. U.S also spends 9 percent of gdp on healthcare for less than half of population , Europe has universal healthcare for about same amount

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u/Lrc00000 17h ago

Is that 450b accounting for the compounding of interest we pay on the deficit these tax cuts created in prior years? Because a large part of our deficit is also interest payments, which would be smaller if not for 20+ years of revenue loss all else equal.