Here are the numbers for the US, as a percentage of GDP: - Government Debt: 123.0% - Tax Receipts: 17.2% - Spending: 23.1% - Deficit: 5.9% - Interest on De

Here are the numbers for the US, as a percentage of GDP: - Government Debt: 123.0% - Tax Receipts: 17.2% - Spending: 23.1% - Deficit: 5.9% - Interest on Debt: 4.2% So yeah, 1/4 of taxes go to paying interest. To allay the debt concern crowd a bit: gdp numbers are real numbers, so inflation of 3% and growth of 1% = 4% nominal, so that deficit number actually means that next years govt debt as percent of gdp won’t be materially higher. This is the government playbook: create actual inflation of 6% per year, with reported statistic inflation of 3% per year. This means real growth looks like +3% before you need to talk about contractions/recession. All this means that the sovereign crisis is not near and the government steals your savings at 6% per year.