America’s gross national debt has exceeded $31 trillion for the first time, according to a U.S. Treasury Department report published Tuesday, as the country suffers high inflation and rising interest rates. “This is a new record no one should be proud of,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “In the past 18 months, we’ve witnessed inflation rise to a 40-year high, interest rates climbing in part to combat this inflation, and several budget-busting pieces of legislation and executive actions,” MacGuineas added. “We are addicted to debt.”
