According to USA Today, the national debt recently marked a dubious achievement. It is now as big as the entire country’s economy. To clarify, the total amount the country owes is roughly equal to the “value of all goods and services the U.S. economy produces in one year.”
According to the latest estimate in September, GDP was around $15.17 trillion. Forecasts expect that to rise to around $15.3 trillion when the next round of numbers are released. Even still, the national debt will reach the revised number sometime this month.
Economists immediately sounded the alarm. Steve Bell from the Bipartisan Policy Center explained, “The 100% mark means that your entire debt is as big as everything you’re producing in your country. Clearly, that can’t continue.” Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics warned this means we have a “grave need to address our long-term fiscal problems.”
As USA Today notes, among advanced economies, only Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Portugal have debts larger than 100% of their GDP.
At the core of it, this simply presents an opportunity. Whether the debt is slightly lower or slightly higher than our entire economy, something needs to be done. This mark provides lawmakers a chance to step back and examine just how bad things have gotten. The economy urgently needs a dose of fiscal responsibility. As a recovery flounders and the government continues to spend, the debt will grow at a faster rate than the economy. This is simply unsustainable.
