2024 was the year when the runaway US budget deficit was supposed to gradually normalize, and after two crisis-years, the US was supposed to end its drunken sailor spending ways. And for a while there, it seemed touch and go, with the cumulative US deficit initially overtaking 2023 - forget about the batshit insane 2021 and 2022 when the deficit hit a mindboglilng 18% of GDP...

When the US borrows money, it needs to pay its loans back with interest—just like any other borrower. But America’s national debt is currently $34 trillion and rising. Soon, the US will need to spend more each year paying interest than what it spends on national defense.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told colleagues on Sunday that Congressional negotiators have reached a topline spending figure to avert a federal government shutdown on Jan. 19 for some government agencies, and Feb. 2 for others.

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans places no constraints on spending on the war in Ukraine, a White House official told Bloomberg.

A bill to raise the debt limit and cap government spending passed in the House by a wide margin late Wednesday, sending the bill to the Senate just days before Monday’s U.S. default deadline.

In the small print detailing the end of the debt ceiling melodrama which, as we explained, is a farce as it boosts inflation-adjusted spending contrary to Republican promises, there was some actual news: the great student loan boondoggle is about to come to a screeching halt, after a three year "emergency pause" which redirected tens of billions in dollars away from mandatory student loan repayment to other forms of discretionary spending.

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans that was announced Sunday caps military spending at $886 billion for 2024, matching President Biden’s requested budget.

Corporate bankruptcies are edging back up after a two-year lull as pressures in the economy grow, a situation sure to worsen if the nation’s political leaders fail to reach a deal to prevent the government from defaulting on its debt.

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday warned that a default on government debt would likely leave millions of Americans without income payments, potentially triggering a recession that could destroy many American jobs and businesses.