US national debt and federal spending debate 2026

The Supreme Court declined to block the 2025 pocket rescission, citing the president's authority over foreign affairs.

President Trump used a 'pocket rescission' budget maneuver to claw back the funds.

The Trump administration announced on Friday that it was canceling $810 million in congressionally approved spending.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairs the Senate committee on appropriations.

The Government Accountability Office has stated that the ICA does not permit withholding proposed rescissions through expiration if Congress has not approved them.

Sen. Susan Collins said the move is the most recent attempt by the Office of Management and Budget to undermine Congress's Constitutional power of the purse.

For 2026, taxpayers who itemize their deductions only receive the charitable tax break once it exceeds 0.5% of their adjusted gross income.

Starting in 2026, there is a charitable tax break for non-itemizing filers worth up to $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for married couples.

Trump's 'big beautiful bill' was enacted in July 2025 and included changes to the charitable deduction for taxpayers across the income spectrum.

Rep. Eric Burlison accused Washington lawmakers on both sides of the aisle of being "drunk on spending".

Rep. Eric Burlison said that fixing healthcare is the number one thing Congress should be looking to do.

Rep. Eric Burlison said that if health insurance premiums had followed normal inflation, it would only cost $11,000 per year today.

Bessent told Axios he was open to discussing shared AI risks with China.

The Federal Reserve's FOMC raised benchmark interest rates to a target range of 3.75% to 4% on Sept. 16, the first increase since 2023.

Trump told reporters he spoke with Warsh before the FOMC meeting and said it would not matter how Warsh voted.

The CBO's most recent long-term outlook was issued in February and projected the benchmark yield at 4.1% for 2026 and 4.2% for 2027.

Jared Bernstein wrote a New York Times op-ed on Monday in which he said the U.S. is getting closer to a fiscal crisis at a rate he finds alarming.

Ed Yardeni coined the term 'bond vigilantes.'

Without extensions, approximately 62% of Americans would have seen tax increases in 2026 when the 2017 tax provisions were scheduled to expire, according to the Tax Foundation.

The average tips deduction was over $7,000 and the average senior deduction was more than $7,500, according to the latest Treasury data.

More than 64 million tax returns claimed at least one of Trump's signature new tax cuts, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Jack Lew said solutions to Social Security's shortfall get harder as the exhaustion date approaches.

If the retirement and disability trust funds are combined, Social Security would be able to pay full benefits until the third quarter of 2034, when 83% of scheduled benefits would be payable.

In 2026, wages up to $184,500 are subject to Social Security payroll taxes.

The GAO estimated that $6.7 billion of the $9.5 billion was associated with the deferred resignation program.

The Government Accountability Office published a report estimating the federal government paid federal workers $9.5 billion not to work in 2025.

The deferred resignation effort began with an email to federal workers titled 'Fork in the Road.'

Hawley described data centers' use of Opportunity Zone tax breaks as a form of corporate welfare.

Sen. Josh Hawley plans to introduce legislation that would exclude data centers from accessing Opportunity Zone tax breaks.

Opportunity Zone tax breaks were first approved by Congress as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet and Don Davis unveiled legislation Wednesday that would block data centers from tapping certain federal investment incentives.

The tax incentives in question were not created specifically for AI or data centers.

President Donald Trump is making data center facilities central to his American AI agenda.

Patty Murray is vice-chair of the Senate appropriations committee.

Douglas Pasternak is research director of Public Citizen's Trump Accountability Project.

$6.7bn of the $9.5bn paid to federal workers was associated with the deferred resignation program.

The top 1% of taxpayers pay roughly 40% of federal individual income taxes.

For 2026, estates above the federal exemption can face a top estate-tax rate of 40%.

Massachusetts has a millionaire surtax.

Oil prices have risen above $100 a barrel.

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is facing pressure from President Trump not to raise interest rates.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday for his annual testimony.

Analysts project the U.S. will breach the $41.1 trillion debt ceiling at some point in 2027.

Trump proposed a $5,000 dividend for every American if Republicans win the midterms.

Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford three defections on a party-line vote in the House.

Senator Mitch McConnell has not been on Capitol Hill since a June 14 fall put him in the hospital.

The Senate has three weeks of business ahead of it with no announced changes to its schedule.

The war in Iran has stretched into its seventh month.

In 2026, workers contribute Social Security payroll taxes on up to $184,500 in earnings.

Expanding the payroll tax cap to cover 90% of wages by setting the cap at $346,000 starting in 2027 and then indexing it to wage growth would eliminate nearly 900,000 jobs and reduce GDP by 0.7%, according to the Tax Foundation's research.

Completely eliminating the Social Security payroll tax limit would cover 67% of the program's 75-year solvency gap, according to the Roosevelt Institute.

Mary Johnson said how the projected COLA might change will depend on volatile oil prices.

The Social Security COLA is determined by the percentage increase in third-quarter inflation data from the prior year to the current year.

The Senior Citizens League projects a 3.5% Social Security COLA for 2027, down from the 3.6% increase it had estimated last month.

The proposed payment was conditioned on Republicans retaining control of both houses of Congress in the midterms.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said he fears the payments would cause more inflation and accused Trump of trying to buy votes.

Penn Wharton's Budget Model estimates the tariffs brought in roughly $300 billion.

Trump likened the $5,000 dividend to a one-time, tax-free $1,776 'Warrior Dividend' approved for about 1.45 million U.S. military service members the prior year.

Lutnick said the administration could earn the money for the dividend not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.

The government's budget deficit is nearing $1.8 trillion, its highest since March 2021.

President Trump said he does not think lawmakers would need to approve the $5,000 payments.

Trump proposed possibly eliminating credit card swipe fees, which he said could save the typical family about $1,200 a year.

Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. would fund the $5,000 dividend using tariff revenue and that it would be aimed at the middle class.

The U.S. federal government takes in more than $5 trillion each year.

U.S. interest payments on the national debt are larger than U.S. military spending.

Warren Buffett said he could end the deficit in five minutes by passing a law that makes sitting members of Congress ineligible for reelection whenever there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP.

In 2016, Donald Trump pledged to eliminate the federal debt within eight years.

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' is expected to increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion over the next decade.

Under Trump, the U.S. is running annual deficits of approximately $2 trillion.

Net interest costs have surpassed $1 trillion annually.

The total public debt amounts to nearly $300,000 per household.

Net interest costs are projected to reach more than $2 trillion within a decade.

US debt recently surpassed $40 trillion.

Kenneth Rogoff is a professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University.

Scott Bessent said AI-led growth will bring the US deficit down to 3% of GDP.

After the buyback announcement, 30-year treasury yields dropped to 5.18% before rising back to close to 5.25%.

JPMorgan's James Sullivan compared the Treasury's bond buyback to 'paying your mortgage with your credit card.'

30-year treasury yields reached a ceiling of 5.34% last week, the highest seen in 19 years.

Federal debt is now bigger than the U.S. economy.

Scott Bessent is the Treasury secretary.

There were headlines about rising interest rates on long-term debt.

A single major Cyclospora outbreak has sickened nearly 11,000 people and caused two deaths.

The United States has recorded more than 160 food recalls this year.

The US national debt has officially surpassed $40 trillion for the first time in history.

In early trading on Friday, gold futures climbed 1.67% to reach $4,647.70, while spot gold rose 1.55% to $4,588.08.

In the World Gold Council survey, 45% of respondents expected their own institutions' gold holdings to increase, while 1% anticipated a decline.

Earlier in the year, gold had reached record highs close to $5,600.

Social Security and Medicare have roughly $86 trillion in unfunded obligations.

Current baseline projections estimate United States debt will reach $64 trillion within a decade.

The late former Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma authored the book "The Debt Bomb."

Treasury Department data shows the United States national debt has surpassed $40 trillion.

The United States government last recorded a federal budget surplus in 2001.

Divided evenly across the current U.S. population, the national debt equates to roughly $116,800 per American.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there is a "very good chance" that the U.S. budget deficit under President Donald Trump has likely peaked.

The monthly U.S. budget deficit topped $432 billion in July.

Bessent said the U.S. can grow its way out of the $40 trillion debt.

The $40 trillion figure amounts to about $117,000 in debt per person in the US.

The US spends roughly $7 trillion annually and 60 percent of that budget is earmarked for mandatory programmes.

The US Treasury reported a $432 billion deficit for July, the fourth-highest monthly deficit in US history.

Three U.S. officials, a former defense official, outside experts and two congressional staff members said the Defense Department is running out of cash.

The Defense Department was funded with a budget of nearly a trillion dollars.