Federal revenues in November rose $23 billion to $275 billion, a 9% increase from a year earlier.
Outlays jumped $88 billion to $589 billion, 18% higher than a year earlier. Interest payments on U.S. government debt accounted for $25 billion of the increase.
The outlay for interest on the debt in November, at
$80 billion
, surpassed the$66 billion
outlay for national defense, which was up $8 billion from a year earlier. The outlay for the government-run Medicare health insurance program also rose by $8 billion, to$93 billion
, while the outlay for the government-run Medicaid program for the poor and disabled climbed $2 billion to$50 billion
.
TFW your interest payments approach medicare spending
The weighted average interest rate on the $26 trillion of outstanding Treasury securities rose to 3.10% last month from 2.22% in November of last year.
Seems nice in sense, if fed won't drop interest rates in the next year, libertarian bugbear about deficits will come closer to fruition
Yes, but also willingness of overseas banks to buy t-bills. If usa were not empire, internal market for treasuries is huge but not limitless - on par with total stock market and bond market of round 100 trillion.
If buyers suddenly can't absorb new treasury bills, for lib economics that's a huge problem. Yes, fed can accumulate them on their spreadsheet for a while, until people outside of the usa think its fine. Than, if they change their minds it will suddenly be very not fine
As a corollary, these rates must make dollar conversion attractive, which inflates the dollar, which makes investment in export goods even less attractive and worsens our trade imbalance.