As of April 2025, the U.S. national debt stands at a staggering $36.2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that net interest payments on this debt alone will reach $952 billion in fiscal year 2025—nearly a trillion dollars just to service past borrowing. Over the next decade, the debt is expected to rise by approximately $2 trillion per year, bringing the total to over $56 trillion by 2034. And still, there is no serious movement among America’s political class to stop the hemorrhaging. It is long past time to confront a fundamental truth: the United States must default on its national debt.
This position is not advanced lightly. Defaulting is a grave step, and not without consequences. But the consequences of continuing on the current trajectory are far worse: endless borrowing, hollowing out of the dollar, and a political system that treats the future as a dumping ground for today’s cowardice. America’s fiscal collapse will not come from a sudden shock—it is already unfolding in slow motion.
The federal government collects plenty of revenue. For fiscal year 2025, it expects to take in $5.49 trillion. That includes $2.6 trillion from individual income taxes, $2.2 trillion in payroll taxes, and $467 billion from corporations. The problem isn’t that Washington doesn’t have money. The problem is that it’s too easy for politicians to avoid hard choices. Rather than prioritize, they borrow. Rather than reform entitlements or rein in defense spending, they punt. Rather than face voters with painful realities, they swipe the national credit card again.
Why wouldn’t they? The political incentives are perfectly aligned for fiscal recklessness. Voters like their benefits. Defense contractors like their contracts. And the Federal Reserve has shown it’s more than willing to quietly backstop everything through inflation, ensuring the damage is distributed silently and regressively across the economy. It’s a form of default already—just one that punishes the poor and the prudent.
A clean, unapologetic default would at least be honest.
Critics will argue that a U.S. default would shatter global confidence and destabilize financial markets. But that argument presumes confidence still exists. It also presumes there’s no cost to maintaining the illusion. In reality, the long-term credibility of the United States is being destroyed not by default, but by pretending one will never be necessary.
Consider the math: debt held by the public is projected to rise from $28.2 trillion in 2024 to $48.3 trillion by 2034. Some forecasts place total federal debt, including intragovernmental holdings, as high as $56 trillion by then. Net interest costs alone are set to become the largest line item in the federal budget within a decade. No serious plan exists to reverse this trend. Both parties occasionally gesture at reform, but the structure of democratic governance—with its short-term electoral incentives and entrenched constituencies—makes meaningful change virtually impossible.
This is not a matter of party politics. It is a structural problem. The American political system is fundamentally incapable of balancing the budget as long as it retains the ability to borrow. As long as deficit spending is an option, politicians will choose it. Defaulting on the national debt is the only mechanism that would force the federal government to live within its means. No more borrowing. No more fantasy budgeting. No more kicking the can. A hard reset.
Yes, there would be turmoil. Credit markets would panic. Bondholders would suffer. But the long-term benefits would be worth the pain. A post-default United States could finally impose the kind of fiscal discipline it has lacked for decades. It could prioritize its obligations based on present revenue, not speculative growth or borrowed time. Most importantly, it would be liberated from the soft tyranny of perpetual debt service—a reality in which nearly $1 trillion a year goes not to schools, roads, or defense, but to interest payments.
And what of the dollar? It is already being quietly debased. The Federal Reserve, in concert with the Treasury, has been engineering inflation to reduce the real burden of debt. But this stealth default is neither fair nor sustainable. It punishes savers. It erodes trust. And it does nothing to address the root cause: an unwillingness to match spending to revenue.
The United States does not need to borrow more. It does not need new taxes. It needs a spine. It needs leaders willing to confront the arithmetic. A government that takes in over $5 trillion a year has enough money to fulfill its core functions. What it lacks is the courage to set limits.
Default, then, is not a failure—it is a reckoning. It is the recognition that promises made without means are not sacred, and that the future of the republic is more important than the bond market’s comfort. Default is not the end of American credibility; it is the beginning of its restoration.
It is time to say it plainly: we are not going to pay the debt back. We never were. Let us at least stop pretending otherwise—and build a republic that can live within its means, honestly, firmly, and freely.
