Recent federal budget projections I’ve posted have excluded debt interest payments. It’s not my fault. CBO didn’t include interest payments in the graphs that accompany their most recent budget outlook (why?).
Interest payments are large. In the relatively near term, think of them as another Medicaid. By the mid-century, think of them as another Medicaid+Medicare. By late-century, think of them as another entire U.S. federal budget. Here’s a helpful chart from Wikipedia. The data are a few years old. I’d love a more recent one, but I haven’t found the time series for it because, as I said, CBO didn’t produce it (why? Oh, I asked that already.)
