The US national debt has risen so high that Washington will no longer be able to print any more dollars to service it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
He was commenting on a statement made by his US counterpart John Kirby on Wednesday, that the US has already spent 96% of the funds allocated for Ukraine since early 2022, when its long-running tensions with neighbor Russia turned to armed conflict. When a reporter suggested that Washington could just print money indefinitely unless the printing press breaks down, Peskov pointed out that there will simply be no paper left.
“I read recently that the United States spends about $200 million an hour on servicing its debt,” he said. “They will run out of paper soon,” he added.
Currently, US outstanding public debt amounts to roughly $33.6 trillion, after it exceeded its $31.4-trillion debt ceiling in January.
According to Congressional Budget Office data released earlier this year, interest payments on the national debt amounted to $475 billion in fiscal year 2022. That translates to about $1.3 billion per day and approximately $54.2 million per hour.
Over the past year the federal government’s borrowing costs have increased rapidly due to a series of interest-rate hikes, and will continue growing, the CBO warned.
Within the next 30 years, servicing the national debt will become the largest expenditure in the federal budget, outpacing healthcare and social security, it added.
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