Hey Big Spender: Three Trillion-Dollar Numbers, One Fiscal Year
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Hey Big Spender: Three Trillion-Dollar Numbers, One Fiscal Year
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This week, three numbers, one fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Office projects $1.1 trillion in net interest on the national debt in fiscal year 2027. The Pentagon is asking for $1.5 trillion. And in Dallas on September 9th, the president promised every adult citizen $5,000 if Republicans hold Congress. Multiply it out and that is roughly $1.2 trillion, about the size of the interest bill.
Host Steve Ellis is joined by TCS Director of Research and Policy Josh Sewell and policy analyst Gabe Murphy. Josh explains what net interest is, why it is climbing, and what $3 billion a day crowds out. Gabe breaks the Pentagon request into its three parts, scores what Congress has actually done with it, and walks through the top items in the TCS and Project on Government Oversight report identifying more than $500 billion in cuts: Golden Dome, the Sentinel ICBM, and the Trump-class battleship.
Plus: what tariffs have actually brought in, how a $1.5 trillion Pentagon baseline feeds the interest bill, and what taxpayers should watch for when the continuing resolution expires December 11th in a lame-duck Congress.
Two of those numbers Congress gets to vote on. The third one, we all just pay.