The U.S. national debt has reached $34 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said.
The total amount of outstanding US debt rose to $34.001 trillion from $33.911 trillion a day earlier, the ministry's daily report showed, the Sarajevo Times reported.
This means that the national debt has exceeded the GDP, which, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce, amounted to 27.6 billion dollars at the end of September.
In the middle of last year, the influential CBO institute, which is staffed by former officials of the US Central Bank, the Treasury Department and Congress, estimated that in 2023 the national debt of the US could reach 98% of GDP.
In 2022, according to official data, it amounts to 97% of GDP, and over the past 30 years it has averaged 57%.
"By the end of this decade, it should grow to 107% and exceed the historical value, and by 2053 it will reach, according to their calculations, 181% of GDP," according to the institute's long-term estimates published at the end of June.
"Such a large debt would slow economic growth and increase interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook," the CBO warned.
US lawmakers return to their seats next week to meet a deadline to negotiate government spending in the new fiscal year.
If they do not reach an agreement, many government bodies will again be threatened with disruption of their activities.
The deal could be hampered by upcoming presidential and congressional elections.
White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa linked the rise in national debt to the 2017 tax cuts under Republican President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress. /BGNES
