Yellen: We Have ‘Normal’ National Debt Interest Burden

During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the current interest burden of the national debt is at a “normal” level, but President Joe Biden wants to cut the deficit “and doing that would be compatible with making investments in the economy that are necessary to support its growth. But we’re going to have to let important pieces of the Tax Cut[s] and Job[s] Act expire.”

Yellen said, “Well, the debt — the ratio of debt to GDP — we have a very large economy, and the ratio of debt to GDP is about 100%, which is high in historical terms. But real interest rates are lower than they have been throughout much of our history. And so, right now, the interest burden of the debt is at what I would call normal historical levels. To stay there over the next decade or more, it’s necessary to contain deficits and to counter what would otherwise be an increase in the burden of the debt.”

She added, “I think it’s necessary to contain deficits, and the President’s budget is full of proposals to do exactly that. He’s proposed three trillion dollars in deficit reduction over the next decade, and doing that would be compatible with making investments in the economy that are necessary to support its growth. But we’re going to have to let important pieces of the Tax Cut[s] and Job[s] Act expire. The President wants to protect households making under $400,000, but that was a huge deficit-increasing tax cut and it has lowered our tax revenues and resulted in a huge increase in debt.”

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