We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Key Points and Summary: The U.S. national debt surpassed $36 trillion in late 2024, highlighting mounting fiscal challenges. Despite this, Donald Trump’s return to office and Republican control of Congress are unlikely to see meaningful debt reduction.

-While Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) promotes cuts, its influence is limited, especially regarding mandatory programs.

-The reinstated debt ceiling, expiring soon, adds urgency, with Treasury “extraordinary measures” only buying time.

-Political divides complicate solutions, leaving a bipartisan deal or budget reconciliation as the only viable options. However, substantial spending cuts remain politically difficult, leaving the U.S. grappling with its growing fiscal crisis.

U.S. Debt Hits $36 Trillion: Can Trump and Congress Solve the Crisis?

The national debt, per the Peterson Foundation, crossed the $36 trillion mark in late 2024. That figure, the foundation says, is the equivalent of the combined value of the economies of China, Germany, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom. 

“America’s high and rising debt matters because it threatens our economic future. The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated our fiscal challenges, but we were already on an unsustainable path, with structural drivers that existed long before the pandemic,” the Foundation says. “Putting our nation on a better fiscal path will help ensure a stronger and more resilient economy for the future.”

The question is, what will be done about it, with Donald Trump returning to office with Republican majorities, albeit small ones, in both houses of Congress? 

America’s National Debt Challenge: Explained

The need to reduce the deficit or debt has never been a particularly major tenet of Trumpism, and Trump, per the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, added more than $8 trillion to the debt during his first term in office. 

And while the Elon Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is making noises about big cuts to federal spending, it’s unclear how much power DOGE, which is not a government agency with any statutory mandate, will actually wield- and questions have been raised about exactly how big a dent its recommendations can make without touching mandatory programs. Talking about cutting spending tends to be easy, and popular, while actually doing it is difficult, and much less popular. 

John Kasich, the former Congressman, Ohio governor, and presidential candidate, wrote an op-ed for The Hill in December about how “It’s finally time to tackle the national debt.” 

“On Election Day, voters sent a resounding message — they want a new direction. So, with a new team preparing to take command of the White House and Congress, now is the time to recognize the vulnerabilities created by our national debt and excessive spending — and do something about it,” he writes. But Kasich is out of government and not likely to ever run for anything again. 

There are deficit and debt hawks in the House Republican Caucus in particular, but those issues don’t have quite the political salience today that they did in the era when Paul Ryan was leading the House Republicans, and with that slim majority, Congress is likely to have a difficult time even agreeing on budget resolutions, much less spending cuts major enough to meaningfully reduce the national debt. 

So what’s next? 

Per CNN, the debt ceiling has been reinstated, after it was temporarily suspended as part of a deal between President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy in June 2023, which expired this month. The U.S. is likely to reach that debt limit soon, and when the government has come close to doing so in the past, the solution has traditionally been, rather than sudden and dramatic cuts to spending, for lawmakers to reach a deal to raise it. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin wrote in a letter to lawmakers this week that the U.S. will hit the limit between January 14 and January 23, although “extraordinary measures” will buy a few months. President-Elect Trump had demanded that the debt limit be removed before he arrives in office, but that did not happen. 

President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Per a December 30 Politico analysis, Trump will inherit this mess once he returns to the White House. 

“One path requires full buy-in from Republican lawmakers to address the issue via budget reconciliation — a huge challenge thanks to the party’s fierce fiscal hawks. The other entails winning over Democrats, who for the most part rejected Trump’s initial debt-limit gambit this month,” Politico’s analysis said

So the national debt remains at record highs. But when it comes to reducing it, there are no easy answers

Author Expertise and Experience

Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.