The United States is on pace to spend more to maintain its debt than on its own military. In the third quarter, the federal government spent over $184 billion on interest payments on its debt. That means an annual cost of over $730 billion. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense 2022 budget was about $720 billion.
Interest payments have skyrocketed over the past two years with massive increases in government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic and then due to interest rate hikes enacted by the Federal Reserve in an attempt to curb inflation.
Interest payments in the first three quarters of 2022 reached nearly $500 billion compared to less than $430 billion the year before, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis….