We, your faithful editors are man (and woman) enough to admit when we’re wrong. We predicted at the start of the year that the deficit may hit $2 trillion this year.

Oops. We undershot. The fiscal year ended on Sept 30 and the deficit was $2.3 trillion.

Our friend and scholar Sven Larson has parsed the numbers and they aren’t pretty:

One reason why the budget deficit keeps growing is that the cost of the debt itself has now reached such proportions that it contributes to the erosion of the budget. In two years, the annualized interest rate on the federal debt has gone up from 1.87% to 3.25%; the cost in dollars and cents has increased from $579 billion per year in interest payments to $1,153 billion.

To put this in perspective of the federal budget, here are its largest items as estimated for 2024:

1. 1. 1. Social Security    $1,457bn
      2. Interest        $1,153bn
      3. Defense        $908bn
      4. Medicaid        $858bn
      5. Medicare        $847bn
      6. Income security    $761bn

What makes us nervous is that we are now so anesthetized by these giant numbers, that few in Washington are even the slightest bit concerned. They aren’t even at Step 1 of recovery for fighting an addiction.