On May 5, 2025, the debt of
the U.S. Government stood at $36.21 trillion, $28.9 trillion being held by the
public and $7.31 trillion being intragovernmental. That total is $1.66 trillion
more than the total federal public debt on May 5, 2024. Projected interest
payments of $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 would be 8 percent higher than the
interest payments made in 2024. By comparison, the U.S. budget for national
defense in fiscal year 2025 totaled $892.6 billion. Whether going to investors
of treasury bonds or defense contractors and other corporations, the combined
$1.85 trillion for fiscal 2025 represents a transfer payment to the wealthy
from American taxpayers rich, middle-class, and poor. Meanwhile, Republican
lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, 2025 that
would subject Medicaid and food assistance to significantly less money and
subject the States with having to spend more on the administration of those programs.
Principles of political ideology reside just below the surface. My task here is
to flush them out and relate them to each other, rather than to impose my own ideology.
The full essay is at "The U.S. Government's Debt."
