Tag Archive for: Federal Deficit

Treasury Department Says Official National Debt Is $37 Trillion — but the Real Total Is $158 Trillion

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Ask officials in the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Service what America’s national debt total is, and they reply that as of September 3, 2025, every man, woman, and child currently living in America today is collectively responsible for $37,274,265,917,907.03. Or more than $37 trillion.

To put that figure into perspective, a stack of 37 trillion dollar bills, with each bill being 0.0043 of an inch thick, would reach more than 2.5 million miles high. That’s enough to go to the Moon and back to the Earth 10 times. Or to put it in a more personal perspective, every man, woman, and child in America owes about $110,000.

But as daunting as those figures are, they don’t tell whole story. Not even close, according to Truth in Accounting (TIA), a Chicago-based nonprofit devoted to reforming how government calculates and reports its actual debt and related fiscal obligations, such as loan guarantees.

“Truth in Accounting’s review of the latest available audited Financial Report of the U.S. Government found its overall financial condition worsened by $4.7 trillion in 2024. Despite this alarming trend, elected officials continue to make financial decisions that have contributed to a mounting debt burden of $158.6 trillion,” according to TIA’s most recent Financial State of the Union report. “This staggering debt translates to a $974,000 liability for every federal taxpayer, resulting in the federal government receiving a failing grade for its fiscal responsibility.”

Why such a yawning gulf between the official and the actual national debt? The reason, according to TIA, is that Treasury Department officials don’t include in its national debt calculations benefits such as Social Security and Medicare promised in the future — but not yet paid.

“The Treasury Department only included a fraction, $241 billion, of the Social Security and Medicare liabilities on the federal balance sheet because unknown to most people, according to government documents, recipients do not have the right to any benefits beyond the benefits to be paid next month, and laws to reduce or stop future benefits can be passed at any time.,” TIA reported.

Sheila Weinberg, TIA’s founder and chief executive officer, told The Washington Stand that “this method of accounting would be unacceptable for any large corporation, and it obscures the true fiscal challenge the country faces.”

Weinberg did not mention it, but the Bible in multiple verses makes clear that God considers dishonest weights and measures to be an abomination. In Leviticus 19:35-36, for example, God tells the Israelites that they “shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just Epah, and a just Hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

The Epah was a measure of something dry like wheat, while a Hin was a measure of volume of a liquid.

Few Americans likely know that the federal government views itself as having no obligation to pay such as Social Security beyond the immediate month.

Weinberg noted that the chief actuary of Social Security, Steve Goss, told “a meeting of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) that ‘an overriding uncertainty exists under the Social Security (and all Federal Social Insurance) programs. This is the government’s right and ability to alter potential future benefits. Until benefits become due and payable, there is no binding commitment over which a worker has control and so no liability can be recognized.’”

In other words, when it comes to accounting for the financial condition of the federal government, officials only consider what is presently owed this month. The fact that the government has promised hundreds of billions of dollars in future Social Security, Medicare, federal pension, and loan guarantees is ignored, even though citizens count on them, and politicians promise they will be paid.

It’s as if a consumer claims on a mortgage application that he or she only owes $500, even though the total debt for that new SUV bought last year is actually $50,000.

The reality, according to Matthew Dickerson, director of Budget Policy for the Economic Policy Innovation Center, is that “the government has promised benefits for entitlement programs without a way to pay for them. Social Security and Medicaid face more than $75 trillion in unfunded liabilities; the amount the government would need in the bank today to cover the promises that have been made for the future.”

This approach to government spending means outlays will grow faster than the economy, a situation Dickerson calls “inherently unsustainable.” That means, he contends, “The federal government is rapidly running out of fiscal space, which is its ability to borrow without risking a loss of market confidence. The rising debt would make it more difficult for the government to respond to war, recession, or a disaster. Already, the government spends more on interest costs to finance past borrowing than it does on national security.”

The Washington Stand requested comment on these matters from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), as well as the ranking Democrats on those panels, Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. None of the four lawmakers responded.

The problem is not limited to the federal government. Despite many states having laws requiring balanced budgets every year, many of them are deeply indebted with unfunded pension obligations, especially to unionized public workers represented by powerful labor unions.

Among the most deeply indebted states, according to data compiled by TIA, are New Jersey ($82.47 billion), Texas ($51.29 billion), Massachusetts ($43.73 billion), Pennsylvania ($40.59 billion), and Connecticut ($34.97 billion). The average for all 50 states is $12.7 billion.

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

PERKINS: For Congress, This Tick Tock Is Not about an App

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If you already battle high blood pressure, you may want to skip this next exercise. But for the rest of us, open a browser to USDebtClock.org and watch the neon-red digits spin faster than Reverend Al Sharpton when a TV camera blinks on. In the next few minutes, the display will rise by roughly $40 million, pushing the debt far beyond $36 trillion and accelerating toward $37 trillion. That’s more than $265,000 for every American household. And every added dollar is another chain of bondage for our children and grandchildren, a silent tax on their freedom and future.

Why the relentless rise? One reason is the waste, like that exposed last week by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. His report confirms that President Joe Biden’s 2021 withdrawal left the Taliban with 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles, and more than 300,000 weapons — hardware American taxpayers bought for roughly $25 billion. Terrorists are now better armed than when we entered Afghanistan in 2001, funded with borrowed money

That was the Biden administration. Surely Republican leadership will reverse course — right? Not so fast. Keep your eye on that spinning debt clock.

Congress is assembling what the president calls the “one, big, beautiful bill,” a massive budget reconciliation package that needs only 51 Senate votes. Reconciliation is a rare chance to rein in spending and strip out policies that violate the GOP’s professed values —v alues that have grown hazy in the absence of a formal platform but still generally include protecting life, safeguarding children, and practicing fiscal restraint.

Yet about 20 House Republicans are threatening to torpedo the entire bill unless Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion business — continues to receive roughly $700 million a year in fresh taxpayer funding. Let that sink in: self-described pro-life lawmakers are ready to keep borrowing from your grandchildren to bankroll an organization that Congress has investigated for trafficking in baby body parts, an organization repeatedly accused of shielding sexual predators from justice.

With chemical-abortion pills now accounting for as many as two-thirds of all abortions, Planned Parenthood is eyeing its next profit center: cross-sex hormones and other so-called “gender-affirming” drugs — even for minors.

Do you really want your federal tax dollars underwriting permanent medical harm to confused children?

Here’s the bottom line: Planned Parenthood is not in the business of saving lives; it is in the business of ending or permanently altering them — about 400,000 last year alone. A Republican White House and a Republican-led Congress have zero moral or fiscal justification for sending one more dime its way.

So pray for courage — and then pick up the phone. Tell your representative to pass a reconciliation bill that cuts spending, protects the unborn, and refuses to subsidize Planned Parenthood. The debt clock is ticking, and so is the conscience of the nation.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘I Told You Not to Doubt Us’: Johnson Celebrates Another Improbable Win for Trump’s Agenda

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Joy comes in the morning, the Psalmist promised, and for House leadership, that’s never been truer. After a grueling week of negotiations, and at times very bleak odds, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was able to hold a press conference Thursday with news that very few thought possible just 24 hours earlier: the door to reconciliation had been officially unlocked.

The victory, another by-the-skin-of-their-teeth win, was especially significant for House leaders, who not only managed to corral their toughest critics on the budget blueprint but demonstrated to President Trump — and the country — that they can unify when the country depends on it. It was a far cry from where the party stood the previous night, when frenzied meetings across both sides of the Capitol failed to deliver the breakthrough Johnson was hoping for.

And yet, as a man accustomed to impossible situations, the speaker didn’t panic. While the vote carried the weight of the president’s ambitious agenda, Johnson understood that what his members were requesting — deeper spending cuts than the Senate had agreed to — wasn’t unreasonable. He postponed the vote until Thursday morning, expressing confidence that Republicans would all be singing off the same sheet of music by then. And to his detractors’ surprise, he was right.

Overnight, Johnson, Thune, and the House Freedom Caucus continued talking — a discussion that culminated in a Thursday morning press conference with the speaker and Senate majority leader. Together, the two leaders pledged to bridge the divide between the two chambers and find the $1.5 trillion in cuts Johnson’s chamber demanded. It was that joint appearance, members said later, that helped push the bill over the top. Finally, hardline conservatives had a public commitment from Senate leadership they believed they could trust.

Shortly afterward, the GOP hung together for another remarkable vote, losing just two Republicans — Rep. Victoria Spartz (Ind.) and perennial naysayer Thomas Massie (Ky.) — in a 216-214 nailbiter. The margin was so close that if Democrats hadn’t lost two members to untimely deaths this year, the resolution would’ve failed.

“It was a good day in the House,” a jubilant Johnson told reporters later. “I told you not to doubt us. The media always does. The Democrats always do. But we get the job done, and we’re really grateful to have had the big victory on the floor just now.” By taking this “big step,” passing the framework for budget reconciliation, Republicans can “move forward” with everything Americans voted for, the speaker asserted.

Asked what ultimately turned the tide for conservatives, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, pointed out that this was “the first time publicly [that] the Senate leader has come out and actually said that we’re in the same ballpark with the House and Senate reductions. Obviously, we were happy with the House spending reduction because we all voted for it, so I think that’s a step in a positive direction.”

Texas Rep. Chip Roy (R), one of the most outspoken fiscal hawks, explained that it was the speaker’s personal guarantee that he wouldn’t put a reconciliation package on the floor that would increase the deficit. “We had a very concrete [promise] from the speaker on that…” As for the Senate’s buy-in, “We got very explicit commitments,” Roy said.

Under Harris’s leadership, the entire Freedom Caucus seems to have transitioned from agitators to “team players,” NBC observed. Part of that is almost certainly due to Trump, but the rest is a credit to this speaker, who genuinely listens to his members and is determined to do right by them. It also doesn’t hurt that after a year and a half on the job, he’s learned what makes his caucus tick.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who’s known Johnson since he was in law school, reiterated that the speaker’s approach — a far cry from the tight-gripped, punitive leaders of the past — is what continues to deliver success for Congress and Trump. The reason Johnson “seems to be able to pull [rabbits out of a hat] is that he is allowing the process to work as it should,” Perkins said on Friday’s Washington Watch.” “It’s deliberative. It’s ugly. It’s sometimes messy, and it’s slow. But he’s giving all the members an opportunity to voice their concerns and their objectives or objections. And in the end, they they generally come together with consensus. That is the legislative process. The sad news is that’s not always how it’s worked.”

The speaker’s unqiue style was evident in Johnson’s answer to Chad Pergram’s question about what changed between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. “What closed the deal?” the reporter wanted to know. The speaker replied, “Sometimes there are pressure release valves. You have to allow people to do that. You know, everybody’s human around here,” he acknowledged. “There [are] lots of different interests. We have 220 people in the Republican conference, and they have a lot of different ideas. They represent a lot of different districts. And sometimes when the pressure gets turned up, people need to release that. So that’s what I do. I allow them to do that. We take thoughtful discussion and deliberation.”

It was equally significant to observers that when the time came to vote Thursday morning, the president didn’t have to call a single member and pressure them to get in line. Johnson had managed to convince the caucus himself — more proof that the young speaker has not only come into his own but that Republicans have a growing confidence in him.

In a sign of just how much things have shifted from the beginning of Johnson’s roller-coaster speakership, the Freedom Caucus went so far as to publicly thank the Louisianan for his leadership in working out these differences. “After hearing concerns from our Members, the White House committed to historic spending reductions,” they declared in a press release following the vote. “In addition, the Speaker committed to ensuring the final bill will provide enough spending reduction so that tax cuts will be fully offset. As important, the Senate leadership has committed to follow the House’s lead on spending cuts. Thank you,” they continued, “to President Trump, Speaker Johnson, and Leader Thune for your leadership in making this commitment to ensuring a fiscally responsible reconciliation bill. This is a win for the American people and sets the stage to deliver massive tax relief, unleash domestic energy production, fully fund border security and our military, while also securing unprecedented spending reduction.”

It’s the fourth improbable win that Johnson’s pulled off with his miniscule majority in 2025 — a streak that’s spanned his reelection as speaker and the continuing resolution to these come-from-behind triumphs on the House budget blueprint and the Senate’s. And while the next couple of months of putting meat on these plans’ bones won’t be easy, impossible tasks seem to be Johnson’s specialty.

From here, he outlined, “We will now get the committees operating on all cylinders. They’ll be working over the two-week district work period that encompasses Passover and Easter. They’ll take a couple of days off for those holy celebrations and then keep their sleeves rolled up and get right back to work. The committees in the Senate and the House will be working in a collaborative fashion. … [T]his really is a one-team approach by Republicans in both chambers.”

To get the final package of tax relief, spending cuts, and defense and border spending to the president’s desk by Memorial Day, there isn’t time to waste, Republicans in both chambers stress. “Time is of the essence for this reconciliation bill,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham underscored. “… The military and Department of Homeland Security are underfunded, and they needed the money from the reconciliation bill yesterday.”

The speaker repeated Graham’s words almost verbatim before adding, “We know what’s going on around the world. We know that the debt limit cliff is approaching pretty quickly here,” he warned. “We know that markets have been a little unstable. They want to know that Congress is on the job, and I’m here to tell you that we are.” No matter what, Johnson continued, “We’re going to do our job, and we’re going to provide stability, and we’re going to send this message to all of our allies and friends around the world and to our adversaries that America is back, and the America First agenda will be enacted,” the speaker declared.

Underestimate him at your peril.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

DOGE Zeroes in on $150 Billion Spent on Illegal Immigration in Single Year

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As the U.S. continues to accumulate debt at a record pace, entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are calling attention to tens of billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on illegal immigrants.

Citing a Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) study, DOGE posted on X Monday, “In 2023 alone, illegal immigration cost taxpayers $150.7 billion. To put this in context with other costs (adjusted for inflation): World War I: $334 billion[;] Apollo Space Program: $257 billion[;] Manhattan Project: $30 billion[;] Panama Canal: $15.2 billion[;] Hoover Dam: $1 billion.”

The FAIR study, which was released in March of last year, combined estimated expenditures by the federal government ($66 billion) with state and local costs ($115 billion), minus $31 billion in estimated tax contributions from migrants. The money was spent to cover schooling, health care costs including uncompensated hospital expenses and Medicaid, law enforcement costs including incarceration, removal, and border protection, and welfare costs including food and housing assistance, among other expenses. The $150 billion total equaled a $35 billion increase from a previous estimate of $116 billion in 2017.

The sharp acceleration in spending has coincided with the largest surge in illegal immigration ever seen in the U.S., which has occurred as a result of a series of open-border policies implemented by the Biden administration beginning in 2021. The total number of encounters with illegal border crossers as of June was 8.2 million more than in the entire first Trump administration.

The spending on migrants is part of a four-year federal spending spree never before seen in American history. Biden has overseen annual budget deficits of $2 trillion, and by the time he leaves office next January, it is estimated that he will have overseen a net increase of over $9 trillion in the national debt, a record-setting amount for a single term.

FAIR Executive Director Julie Kirchner told Fox News on Tuesday that the total amount of taxpayer dollars spent on illegal immigrants is likely much higher than their original estimate. “The population we cited in the study was 15.5 million. We now estimate that it’s over 16.8 million, and we’re in the process right now of doing another estimate on the illegal alien population, and I’m sure it will be higher. So, we know the costs are going to go up.” She also noted that their report did not include state and local costs associated with sheltering migrants.

In New York City, where there are currently over 58,000 illegal immigrants facing criminal charges, almost 100,000 migrants seeking asylum have moved there over the last two years, and the city estimates it will spend over $12 billion through fiscal year 2025. Meanwhile, Chicago has spent over $400 million on migrants over the past two years.

“The scale of spending on illegal immigration boggles the mind!” Musk observed Monday in response to DOGE’s highlighting of the FAIR report.

Kirchner expressed confidence that DOGE’s efforts could save “billions and billions of dollars each year” in taxpayer money by ending government-subsidized health care plans as well as income and child tax credits for illegal immigrants.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.