Is the federal deficit increasing?
Here’s a breakdown of what the latest information indicates:
- Current Situation: The federal government has been running significant deficits for many years. For instance, the fiscal year 2024 (ending September 30, 2024) saw a deficit of $1.83 trillion, an increase from the previous year. As of April 2025, the cumulative deficit for fiscal year 2025 is already at $1.1 trillion, 13% higher than the same time last year.
- Projections:
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the federal budget deficit to be $1.9 trillion in fiscal year 2025, and to grow to $2.7 trillion by 2035 (adjusted for timing shifts).
- Moody’s Ratings anticipates federal deficits widening to nearly 9% of the U.S. economy by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024.
And all this before Congressional action on more tax cuts.
And here is the naive and shortsighted ideology behind it.
“This bill is our opportunity to deliver on the promises we made,” said Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R., Texas). “At its core, the one big, beautiful bill is about more than dollars and cents. It’s about liberty and empowering the American people.”
Liberty? Empowering to do what?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Read series of articles in WSJ that clearly confirm Biden was always inept – not just in June of 2024.
As I said before, Biden ran for President 3+ times (if you include 2024 as the “+”), and at no time, ever, would I vote for him. I believed Bob Gates, in his up close and personal assessment of President Biden … in 2014 – eleven years ago! “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Biden received 81.3MM votes, over 300 electoral votes in 2020. I never saw any reason to vote for him, other than he was not Donald Trump – who is again proving that he is just another idiot ass.
Obviously, Trump has learned nothing from his first term, other than it is easy to convince Congress to pass legislation that is designed to buy votes … so, we are going to keep on spending $2+ Trillion more each year than we are collecting in revenues … at this rate, I can see a $50+ Trillion in debt by 2030 or so … unless the Bond market collapses and folks decide to stop lending us money (Americans and foreigners, both).
Some facts and figures for your “enjoyment”:
US National Debt closing in on $37 Trillion as we speak.
About $10 Trillion will mature in 2025 and must be “rolled over”, and that is in addition to the over $1 Trillion we will add from this point in the year through 12/31/25.
The federal deficit for FY 2024 was $1.8 Trillion, 6.4% of GDP, and interest payments on our debt now exceed $1 Trillion a year.
More debt likely means higher interest rates, and continued ~$2T of deficit spending, plus adding 100 basis points to borrowing costs will double the ANNUAL INTEREST on national debt to $2+ Trillion BEFORE 2030 – yes, in less than five years and just in time for necessary tax increases to fund Social Security and Medicare entitlements once trust funds are exhausted.
Remember that the assets in the Social Security and Hospital Insurance trust funds are… wait for it … treasury securities. When those are “redeemed” to fund current benefits as we draw down the securities in the trust fund, they will increasingly add to our national debt as well.
Our national debt already exceeds 25% of the country’s total debt. At that level, likely to trigger ever rising interest rates for both public and private financing, it could easily result in choking off economic growth.
If we don’t change course, we may soon look like Greece in 2009 – 2017:
There the government enacted 12 rounds of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms from 2010 to 2016, which at times triggered local riots and nationwide protests.
Despite these efforts, the country required international bailout loans in 2010, 2012, and 2015.
Between 2009 and 2017, despite the severe austerity measures, the Greek government debt rose from €300bn to €318bn. However, during the same period the Greek debt-to-GDP ratio rose up from 127% to 179% due to the economic collapse and significant decline in GDP.
America was at 121.85% debt to GDP in the 4th quarter 2024. We are probably approaching 124% today as debt has increased from $36.2T (4th quarter 2024) to $36.9T today!
And, we will likely get to 127% by the end of FY 2025, September 30, 2025.
And, had we voted in Harris, it would likely have been even worse – in terms of continuation of the status quo.
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Al Lindquist
Jack:
Good work as usual–I think the Greeks have obtained some success–as you stated it was painful. Spending on social programs can be very expensive as we see–no way you could raise enough revenue to solve the problem–the lefties would be back in a few years for even more–these are the folks that wanted to forgive debt by students in spite of the numbers we see above,
We might be able to grow our way out of the problem although I would not bet on it–it will take a crisis.
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AL LINDQUIST
here we go again–anyone who knows anything about this does not give a rats rear end about the numbers you throw around as they are meaningless without context–try using % of GDP, as you have been reminded before,–that’s the adult way of presenting the concern.
for fiscal year 2023-2024 with unemployment at 4% (see, we use % not how many people) debt as a % of GDP was 6.0% and 6.5% respectively–when Reagan was in charge we hit 10% unemployment and debt was 5.9% of GDP. “Full employment ” from your buddies and biggest deficit ever.
When you sit around and talk about the stock market do you guys at the “home” talk about it as the DOW at 40,000 being overpriced or maybe you use PE Ratio-dividend yield as a way of discussing the market?
Why not tell us what the deficit reduction program was for the corpse? Let’s compare plan to plan.
CBO? What did the CBO project in 2015 for 2025? You think covid–was part of the projection? Any thoughts on the equity markets 10-years out?
I have issues with the folks who just woke up to a concern after having 4-years to make a proposal or two. You think any of the plans they put forward increased the deficit???
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Does this make things look better?
The federal debt as a percentage of GDP for the United States over the last ten years (from 2014 to 2024, or the most recent available data) has fluctuated, with a notable increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a general overview based on available data:
2014: Around 95.45%
2015: Around 95.96%
2016: Around 97.93%
2017: Around 97.02%
2018: Around 98.45%
2019: Around 100.12%
2020: Around 124.73% (significant jump due to pandemic spending)
2021: Around 118.89%
2022: Around 110.39%
2023: Around 120.16% (Total Public Debt) or 95.28% (Debt Held by the Public)
2024 (as of Q4): Around 121.85% (Total Public Debt) or 97.09% (Debt Held by the Public)
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Al Lindquist
Good–we are now learning how this works–what about the previous folks and their plan? Why the increase between 2021 and 2024? Any proposed cuts from your end? Wait for the other guys so they can be criticized. Hated DOGE didn’t you but they recognize the problem.
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I believe the only valid way to present the data is in both nominal numbers AND percentages.
When you say debt to gdp is 124% – how many of you can quickly tell me what GDP was in Q1 2025, or what it was last year, let alone adjust it for inflation. Tell me that the national debt is $36.9 Trillion, up from $36.2 Trillion as of 12/31/2024, and you can tell what is happening – because the issue isn’t debt to GDP, but spending versus revenues. Revenues keep increasing consistent with GDP, unfortunately, the idiots pumped spending in 2020 and have maintained or increased that spending ever since.
Tell me that GDP was -.3% in the first quarter 2025 (advance figures) suggests that we are experiencing an economic slowdown, when the true culprit was the massive surge in imports ahead of tariffs.
And what was the annual rate of GDP growth in 2020, when, according to the above cited data, there was a dramatic spike in debt to gdp ratio? Would you believe 2020 GDP was an annual Increase of 2% – that’s how fast the economic recovery was, and how Trump/Congress justified the massive spending.
However, there was no such justification for maintaining those spending levels in 2021 – 2025, and yes, that includes the idiot ass Trump in his second term.
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As much as I wholeheartedly agree that lowering taxes and increasing deficits is incredibly irresponsible right now, you’re going to have to convince the supporters of lower taxes, like parents with their large SUVs, $1000/mo grocery bills, and huge childcare payments—or your favorite group of seniors who think they have paid their due and should be exempt from certain taxes now. many of these people can’t long-term plan for their own benefit, and so it’s an uphill battle to convince them that cutting deficits will help the nation over time, even if it hurts now.
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