Federal Budget Deficit Trending Upward to 120% of GDP ($53 trillion) by 2035

A new report paints a bleak picture of the nations debt and shows it spiraling out of control and falling faster than ever under the present budget enacted recently by congress and signed into law by the Trump administration. Before our readers start complaining this is left wing propaganda note the authors of the report . 

The report is crafted by two longtime experts on budgets. In 1980, Robert Giaimo (D-CT) and Henry Bellmon (R-OK) both left Congress. Mr. Giaimo had served in the House of Representatives for 20 years, including four as Chairman of the House Budget Committee. Mr. Bellmon had served 12 years as a Senator and was the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee from its inception in 1975.

These two fiscal policy leaders convened a group of other former Budget Committee Chairmen, former Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, leading economists, and business leaders. The group concluded that the country needed an organization outside government that was committed to a sound budget process. They formed the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and it was incorporated on June 10, 1981.

According to the just released report by fiscal year 2035, the national debt is set to surpass $53 trillion, or 120% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, according to a new estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The updated number – which CRFB reached by assuming that all current trade deals and tariffs remain in effect – is $1 trillion more than projected in the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2025 Budget and Economic Outlook.

The enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), new tariffs framework, and other changes have meaningfully changed the fiscal outlook since the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) January 2025 baseline. In this piece, we present the CRFB Adjusted August 2025 Baseline, which accounts for most legislative and administrative changes but not economic and technical changes.

We estimate under the CRFB Adjusted August 2025 Baselinethat runs from Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 through FY 2035 and assumes all current tariffs and trade deals remain in effect:

• Debt held by the public will rise from about 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ($30 trillion) today to 120 percent of GDP ($53 trillion) by 2035.
• Deficits will total $22.7 trillion (6.1 percent of GDP) over a decade and rise from $1.7 trillion (5.6 percent of GDP) in 2025 to $2.6 trillion (5.9 percent of GDP) in 2035.
• Net interest payments on the national debt will total $14.0 trillion (3.8 percent of GDP), rising from nearly $1 trillion (3.2 percent of GDP) in 2025 to $1.8 trillion (4.1 percent of GDP) in 2035.
• Spending will total $88 trillion (23.6 percent of GDP) over a decade, while revenue will total more than $65 trillion (17.5 percent of GDP).
• Total deficits are about $1 trillion higher than in CBO’s January baseline, with debt-to-GDP rising by an extra 2 percentage points, as the high cost of OBBBA is partially offset by new tariffs and other reforms over the first five years and mostly offset in the next five.

Under an alternative scenario – the CRFB August 2025 Alternative Scenario – where the U.S. Trade Court’s ruling that much of the tariffs are illegal is upheld, temporary provisions of OBBBA are made permanent, and yields on Treasury securities remain at their current level – debt will reach 134 percent of GDP; the total ten-year deficit will exceed $28 trillion; and interest payments will rise to $2.2 trillion by 2035 – above 5 percent of GDP.

The nation’s finances have deteriorated since CBO’s January 2025 budget outlook, which already showed a worrisome fiscal outlook. Any further changes to tax and spending policy should be at a minimum paid for on a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) basis – but preferably under Super PAYGO, where each dollar of new tax cuts or spending is offset twice over. Furthermore, with debt approaching record levels, lawmakers should proactively pursue trust fund solutionsand enact a combination of revenue and spending optionsthat put the nation’s budget on a sustainable path.

Elon Musk and others have warned that the budget deficit was made worse by the signed budget bill and a fundamental change needs to come out of Washington. What we have witnessed the recent 8 months of the new congress is more of the same in driving the United States to insolvency. 

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