The
national
debt has passed $40 trillion -
that is $40,000,000,000,000,
a number with more zeroes than
most of us can comfortably count.
The Congressional Budget Office
projects a federal deficit of $1.9
trillion this year. We will spend
more than $1 trillion simply
paying interest on the debt -
money that cannot be spent
repairing bridges, educating
children, housing families, or
providing health care.
The numbers are sobering. But
whenever politicians start hyperventilating
about debt, Black folks had better hold on
to our wallets.
Debt matters. Deficits matter. But
they do not seem to matter equally. The
deficit hawks are strangely silent when
Congress passes tax cuts tilted toward
corporations and wealthy people. They
misplace their calculators when the Pentagon
wants billions for weapons it cannot
adequately account for. They rarely ask
whether subsidies to profitable corporations
are affordable. But mention food assistance,
Medicaid, Head Start, or affordable housing,
and suddenly the sky is falling.
The CBO estimates that the 2025
reconciliation law and related debt-service
costs will add $4.7 trillion to projected
deficits. Yet some of the lawmakers who
supported it now say “tough choices” must be
made. Their tough choices almost always
require sacrifice from somebody else.
We ought to ask three questions:
Why did we borrow? Who benefited? And who
will be forced to pay?
The government borrows by selling
Treasury bills, notes, and bonds to
individuals, banks, pension funds, the
Federal Reserve, and domestic and foreign
investors. The danger is not that somebody
suddenly presents America with a $40
trillion bill, but that refinancing the debt
becomes increasingly expensive and interest
payments crowd out other priorities.
Borrowing is not automatically bad.
A government may appropriately borrow during
a recession, war, or public health
emergency. It may borrow to modernize
transportation, strengthen schools, expand
broadband, or make investments that increase
future productivity. Debt used to build
something can generate growth that helps
repay it.
But borrowing to finance tax
giveaways is another matter. Borrowing while
refusing to collect taxes already owed is
another matter. Borrowing because
politically connected corporations treat the
Treasury like their private ATM is another
matter. Borrowing for this President’s
vanity projects is something else again.
The Freedom 250 Grand Prix did not
create our $40 trillion debt, but it
illustrates the hypocrisy of people who
preach austerity while spending public money
on spectacle. Corporate sponsors reportedly
covered most of the racing bill, but
taxpayers will absorb undisclosed costs for
policing, emergency services, and traffic
control. Downtown workers and commuters also
endured weeks of construction, street
closures, and transportation changes. Trump
rode around the track in the presidential
limousine and waved the green flag; the
public will get part of the bill.
The federal government is not a
household. Unlike you or me, it issues
currency and can spread the cost of
investments across generations. Still, it
cannot borrow without consequence forever.
The danger is not simply the size of the
debt, but how our nation will respond to it.
When Washington embraces austerity,
Black people feel the sharp edge first. We
are more likely to work in the public
sector, where cuts mean layoffs and frozen
wages. We are more likely to depend on
public schools, public hospitals, public
transportation, and Medicaid. We are less
likely to have inherited wealth to cushion a
job loss, medical emergency, or rent
increase.
According to the Federal Reserve,
only 38 percent of Black adults had enough
emergency savings to cover three months of
expenses in 2025. The comparable figure for
white adults was 61 percent. That gap is not
the result of Black people being less
disciplined with money. It reflects
enslavement, exclusion, discrimination,
redlining, unequal pay, and the systematic
denial of opportunities to accumulate and
transfer wealth.
When government withdraws,
households fill the hole. A cut in college
assistance becomes a student loan. Reduced
health coverage becomes a credit card
balance. Inadequate public transportation
becomes a high-interest car note. A shortage
of affordable housing becomes punishing rent
or an unaffordable mortgage.
Public austerity becomes private
debt.
And private debt does not land
evenly. Black borrowers are more likely to
pay higher interest rates, face higher fees,
and have fewer favorable credit options.
Even Black people with solid incomes may
carry additional obligations because we are
helping relatives whom discrimination
excluded from wealth-building opportunities.
This is one form of the “Black tax.” The
successful Black household too often becomes
a miniature social-welfare system because
the larger system has failed.
The national debt is measured in
trillions, but Black families experience its
consequences in smaller, more brutal
numbers: the minimum credit card payment,
student-loan balance, late fee, overdraft
charge, rent increase, and prescription that
must wait until payday.
We cannot dismiss a $40 trillion
national debt. But neither should we allow
fiscal responsibility to become a code
phrase for racial and economic cruelty. A
serious debt-reduction plan would close tax
loopholes, fund tax enforcement, curb
wasteful military spending, and end
unnecessary corporate subsidies. It would
invest in jobs, education, infrastructure,
and health because a stronger economy
generates revenue.
Most importantly, it would not
balance the budget on the backs of people
who received the fewest benefits.
The debt is high. Choices must be
made. But before Black America is ordered to
tighten its belt again, perhaps the people
feasting at the federal trough should be
asked to leave the table.
Fiscal responsibility should begin
at the top. And if austerity is required,
sacrifice should begin there, too.
