ZCZC
BCN-18
US-LONG-TERM-DEBT
U.S. gov’t hits record on selling long-term debt in 2019: media
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2019 (BSS/Xinhua) – The U.S. government hit an
annual record for selling long-term debt in 2019, local media reported on
Friday.
The total of notes and bonds sold by the U.S. government, with
maturities ranging from two to 30 years, rose to 2.55 trillion U.S. dollars
in 2019 after the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday auctioned its latest
seven-year notes, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It represented a 26 percent increase from 2017, when Congress approved
the Trump administration’s 1.5-trillion-dollar tax-cut package, the report
said.
The amount of government debt is expected to rise, eventually pushing up
the size of government debt auctions in coming years, as the U.S. is forecast
to run trillion-dollar budget deficits for the next decade, according to the
report.
The U.S. national debt now stands at more than 23 trillion dollars.
The U.S. government is projected to spend about 6 trillion dollars on
interest payments over the next decade, according to the Peter G. Peterson
Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing public
awareness of the country’s key fiscal challenges.
“Addressing the national debt is critical to strengthening America’s
economic future, because it would enable the U.S. to invest in crucial areas
of the federal budget,” the organization said in a recent analysis, warning
that federal debt was on an unsustainable path.
U.S. federal debt held by the public is projected to grow from 78
percent of gross domestic product in 2019 to 92 percent in 2029, the largest
share since 1947 and more than twice the 50-year average, according to the
non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/1322