I felt like doing another forecast, even though it would make more sense to wait because the Big Beautiful Bill hasn't even passed yet, the debt ceiling hasn't been raised and we don't know the total debt to the public at the end of the fiscal year on 9/30/25. This is fun for me, and it's one of the reasons I started this blog.
This shows a breakdown in 2045, which is better than the previous forecast which showed it happening in 2042. The biggest difference here is that I show everything in trillions, instead of billions. The GDP forecast here is more pessimistic and it is based entirely on the recent CBO projections for Social Security. For Social Security spending, it comes from the same source and I added a column for Social Security spending to make it clear that benefits would not be cut.
For revenue, this mostly comes from the CBO March 2025 projected revenues, except the CBO assumes that revenue will magically increase by one-half percent of GDP every year which seems unrealistic. But I do show revenue as a percent of GDP as higher than my previous forecast, except I cap it at 18.5% of GDP (for comparison it is 17.1% of GDP in 2025). But I will humor the CBO a little, and so this does show an increase but not as much as the CBO projects. The result of the increased revenue assumption is that the primary deficit will hang right around $1 trillion per year for the next 10 years.
As for interest, I think the CBO doesn't have a clue. I am forecasting interest as 4% of the prior year's debt to the public.
So I think we have until 2045, 20 years from now, because the system really starts to break itself apart with hyperinflation. A lot will happen between now and then. Maybe spending will be cut a little and maybe the interest rates will be cut more.
This report has a shelf life of about 4 months and should be updated in November after we know the GDP for 9/30/25.
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