The clock never stops ticking on America’s national debt problem
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office warned that the US government could run out of money to pay its bills in August — or even earlier, in a worst-case scenario.
How did we get here?
When the debt ceiling kicked back in at the start of 2025, following the end of a 19-month suspension, it was reset at $36.1 trillion, the amount of debt outstanding at the time.
Since then, the Treasury began relying on temporary accounting maneuvers (known as “extraordinary measures”) to keep funding the government without breaching the cap. However, even those emergency tactics will run dry by the so-called “X-date” — a date that’s difficult to pin down exactly — which the CBO estimates will likely arrive in August or September, but could come as early as late May if tax revenues come in low or spending runs high.
Unless Congress raises or suspends the ceiling again, the US would start defaulting, missing payments on obligations like Social Security or military salaries.
Zooming out
Indeed, $36 trillion is a number that’s hard to conceptualize. Put another way, Uncle Sam owes about $106,000 for every single person in the United States. Even when compared to the size of the economy itself, the US national debt burden is looking heavy.
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