US National Debt Hits 40 Trillion as Other Nations Compare
Left 50%
Center 0%
Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
The United States’ national debt surpassed $40 trillion in August, averaging about $116,000 per American. The International Monetary Fund put U.S. government gross debt at 125.8 percent of GDP. The Washington Examiner reported that this was the first time since World War II that federal government debt had grown to the size of the entire U.S. economy. The milestone arrived as the 2026 midterm elections approached.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The two sides assign opposite causes to the same $40 trillion and leave the other cause out. Left-leaning coverage in Vox traces an unsustainable path to tax cuts and never names Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Right-leaning coverage in the Washington Examiner instead names entitlement spending as the "heart of the debt crisis" and never treats tax cuts as a driver. A reader of either version would not know the competing diagnosis exists.
Left-leaning coverage leads with calm: the figure is a distraction, the country has time, and wealth can absorb the load. Right-leaning coverage leads with how other major economies carry similar debt ratios, then dwells on autopilot programs that grow faster than the economy if Congress does nothing.
How much of the $40 trillion, and of the deficits still coming, is tax policy versus Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?
Bottom line
The $40 trillion coverage splits on the fix: Vox points to upper-end tax cuts, the Washington Examiner to entitlement reform. Each story proceeds as if the other lever does not exist.
The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are identified as the heart of the debt crisis because they grow automatically faster than GDP if Congress does nothing
- Tax-cutting is identified as the biggest contribution to the unsustainable path, with reversing upper-end tax cuts as the remedy
- Medicare and Medicaid rose from about 11 percent of the federal budget in 1990 to roughly 24 percent in 2025
- The Obama administration made permanent 80 percent of the Bush tax cuts
- Mandatory spending plus interest accounted for 75 percent of the federal budget last year
- Comparing the debt to total national wealth rather than one year's income is presented as a path that requires neither austerity nor taxes on ordinary wages
The Left View
Left-leaning sources treat the headline total as a poor guide to whether a crisis exists. In a Vox interview, Jared Bernstein — former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Joe Biden — says he once held that a large stock of debt was tolerable if interest costs stayed manageable and growth outpaced servicing; he now cites three shifts: Congress no longer reacting to unsustainable forecasts, interest rates drifting up, and deficits of 4, 5, and 6 percent rather than a normal 2 to 3 percent. He still says the economy is not “about to explode” and “we still have time to fix this,” calling the round number “a big distraction”: “It’s okay if your debt grows. It’s just not okay if your debt grows faster than your economy.” He locates the repair in reversing “a bunch of tax cuts on the upper end of the income and wealth scale,” arguing Republicans “made the biggest contribution to the unsustainable path through their relentless tax-cutting” while Democrats too often failed to reverse those measures — including making permanent most of the Bush tax cuts. The Hill argues that measuring debt against one year’s income forces a choice between spending cuts and taxes on ordinary wages, whereas comparing it to national wealth “requires neither austerity nor squeezing the middle class.”
The Right View
Right-leaning coverage calls the milestone “grim” while noting that France, Canada, China, and the United Kingdom have comparable debt-to-GDP ratios. Experts told the Washington Examiner the United States is better placed because of a larger, healthier economy, the dollar’s reserve-currency role, and a more capitalist, innovative model that Adam Michel of the Cato Institute said gives Washington a “longer runway” and makes U.S. debt “the least ugly of all the ugly ducklings.” They still call the trajectory unsustainable. Michel said “we cannot grow our way out” because growth is “driven almost exclusively by healthcare spending and Social Security,” which expand as the country gets richer; Medicare and Medicaid rose from about 11 percent of the federal budget in 1990 to roughly 24 percent in 2025, and mandatory spending plus interest accounted for 75 percent of the budget last year. Unlike the post–World War II boom, falling birth rates and an aging population make natural catch-up harder, and “autopilot” entitlements are projected to grow faster than GDP, population, and inflation if Congress does nothing. Michel said nothing will change “until the American people care about the size and scope of government.”
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that the round number is a “big distraction” from the debt-to-GDP path: Bernstein, who long downplayed an imminent crisis, now points to rising rates, recession-sized deficits in normal times, and a Congress that has stopped reacting — while The Hill’s wealth comparison is offered as evidence the country can carry a large stock without middle-class austerity. The right’s strongest argument is structural and quantitative: Michel’s figures on entitlements’ rising budget share, mandatory-plus-interest already at 75 percent of spending, and programs that grow automatically faster than the economy, plus the claim that unlike the 1940s these costs scale with wealth and demographics so growth and AI cannot close the gap. The central unresolved tension is whether the unsustainable path is mainly a revenue-side story of tax cuts the political system will not reverse, or a spending-side story of autopilot entitlements that expand even if the economy does — and thus whether reserve-currency wealth makes a high debt stock tolerable if the ratio can be stabilized, or whether those formulas make the path unsustainable even with continued growth.
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