Total U.S. government debt was $23.2 trillion in January 2020, about two months before the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. By the end of September 2024, the U.S. national debt had soared to $35.5 trillion, a 53 percent rise. Much of that increase was of course due to the outsized spending by the Trump and Biden administrations to counter the adverse economic effects of the pandemic. But some economists, and others, have argued that not all those outlays during the epidemic were warranted.

Even after the economy regained its footing after the pandemic, government spending has remained at those unsustainably high levels. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), average federal deficit over the past 50 years was 3.7 percent of GDP. But in 2023, the shortfall climbed to 6.3 percent of GDP, or $1.7 trillion. Economic historians have noted that such a high deficit level has previously been observed only during wartime.

For perspective, under the EU’s excessive deficit procedure (EDP), member nations are required to limit government deficit to no more than 3 percent of GDP and debt-to-GDP ratio to 60 percent or below. These constraints are meant to ensure budget discipline within the economic bloc. Germany, arguably the most frugal EU member, has actually enshrined in its constitution a “debt brake” mechanism that prohibits its governments, at both federal and state levels, from running budget deficits. The law allows a bit of wiggle room for the federal government, but net borrowing is capped at a measly 0.35 percent of GDP.

The CBO estimates that for fiscal year 2024, which ended on September 30, the U.S. federal budget deficit was even worse, reaching $1.83 trillion, or 6.5 percent of GDP. Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, only 12 had 2024 GDP larger than the U.S. budget deficit. The CBO reports that payments for interest on our public debt rose 34 percent to $910 billion for the fiscal year. That steep increase was mainly due to higher interest rates as the Federal Reserve kept its restrictive monetary policy in place to curb high inflation, which was itself partly caused by the overspending.

During most presidential election campaigns that I have observed over the past few decades, although the national debt was then less than half what it is today, the issue of budget deficits was always fiercely debated. It concerned so many people so much that candidates couldn’t go anywhere on campaign trails without getting asked about what they would do about it if elected. There are several oddities about this year’s presidential contest, but the strangest thing to me is the near-complete absence of any conversations about this crucial subject.

The silence is bad enough, but things could actually get much worse in the coming years. The Wall Street Journal recently cited a report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), which estimated that the fiscal plan proposed by former President Trump in his current campaign would add about $7.5 trillion in budget deficits over the next decade. Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic proposal, while not expected to do as much damage, would still increase deficits by an estimated $3.5 trillion over that timeframe.

The IMF just reported that for the first time, global public debt is expected to reach $100 trillion this year. We are the wealthiest nation on the planet and so perhaps over time, we have the capacity to repay what we owe. But the fact that our country’s obligations account for over 35 percent of all the public debt in the world is certainly not something that any American should be proud of.

Many economists and financial market professionals have repeatedly warned that the U.S. risks facing a debt crisis in the near future if it continues to run such high deficits. But there is no apparent sense of urgency within the political class. For now, investors keep buying U.S. treasury bonds because of the dollar’s status as the world’s primary reserve currency, and the fact that our economy is outperforming all of the other major economies. But that lack of competition is breeding a dangerous complacency. Experts have said that just one failed debt auction could trigger the feared crisis. I have been around financial and commodities markets long enough to know how true that is. All it takes is the market waking up in a bad mood one day. Whatever chain reaction is set off could quickly become uncontrollable.

Two former U.S. Treasury Secretaries, Democrat Tim Geithner and Republican Henry Paulson, have thankfully begun to shine a spotlight on the issue. They are currently leading an effort to form a bipartisan commission to tackle the deficits-and-debt problem. In a recent joint television interview, they said that it is the only way to make any progress. In their view, raising revenues through increases in some taxes and closing tax loopholes, as well as spending cuts, constitute the most viable means to solve the problem. But they went on to say that those measures are so politically unpopular that our current leaders in Washington are unlikely to take them.

That is quite an indictment of the state of our politics today. We have a ticking time bomb staring us in the face but our elected officials, whose responsibility it is to defuse it, lack the courage to do their jobs. And the rest of us seem happy to quietly accept this dereliction of duty because those same politicians say other things that please our ears.

As laid out by the CRFB, our debt problem isn’t going to get better anytime soon. We better wake up, and quickly, to the dangers that it poses to this country. And this great nation should resolve to conduct a far better presidential election in 2028.