Every month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury releases data about the federal budget, including the interest costs that the federal government pays on the national debt. The following contains budget data through March 2025, the sixth month of fiscal year (FY) 2025.
Interest Payments in FY25
The rapid accumulation of federal debt, in addition to higher interest rates on that debt (relative to the past decade or so), has pushed up the federal government’s cost of borrowing. In fact, through the six months of FY25, interest payments on the national debt have been higher compared to previous years.
National debt refers to the outstanding financial obligations of a country. The national debt of the United States is what the federal government owes to its creditors.
The U.S. has always carried national debt and the majority of presidents have added to it. However, total national debt has been expanding rapidly since 2008 due to a combination of increased government spending and failure to raise taxes.
Japan’s finance minister calls US Treasury holdings ‘a card’ in tariff talks with Trump
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s massive holdings of U.S. Treasurys can be “a card on the table” in negotiations over tariffs with the Trump administration, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Friday.
“It does exist as a card, but I think whether we choose to use it or not would be a separate decision,” Kato said during a news show on national broadcaster TV Tokyo.
Kato did not elaborate and he did not say Japan would step up sales of its holdings of U.S. government bonds as part of its talks over President Donald Trump’s tariffs on exports from Japan.
“But offset by an increase in defense spending? Maybe the Pentagon could cut expenses by not paying $340 for hammers?”
Trump to Propose Slashing $163 Billion in Government Programs in Budget Blueprint
WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to propose far-reaching cuts to federal environmental, renewable energy, education and foreign-aid programs in a budget blueprint that slashes nondefense discretionary spending by more than $160 billion, according to administration officials.
The fiscal 2026 budget proposal, which the White House is planning to release on Friday, is a largely symbolic wish list that lays out the president’s spending and political priorities. Congress, which Republicans control by narrow majorities in both chambers, will spend months debating which elements of the proposed plan should be turned into law.
“Russell Brand is getting the Julian Assange treatment?”
Russell Brand was once a famous leftwing actor, celebrated by the British establishment. Then he criticized the government for using Covid to turn the UK into a totalitarian state. The accolades abruptly stopped. A government TV station accused Brand of committing sex crimes…
Justices appear sympathetic to victims of SWAT raid on the wrong house
The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning was sympathetic to the victims of a “wrong house” raid in 2017, with several justices expressing surprise at the federal government’s efforts to contend that the actions of FBI agents were shielded from liability because their acts were discretionary. But it was not clear whether that their skepticism of the agents’ conduct would lead to the result that the victims were seeking.
The case began when a six-agent SWAT team, led by FBI Special Agent Lawrence Guerra, conducted a pre-dawn raid on the suburban Atlanta home where Hilliard Toi Cliatt, his then-partner, Curtrina Martin, and Martin’s seven-year-old son were living. The team broke down the front door with a battering ram and set off a flashbang grenade. The team then pulled Cliatt out of the closet where he had been hiding with Martin and handcuffed him, and it held both of them at gunpoint.
Most people are told vaccines are “safe and effective” with no real downside. But Dr. Humphries pulled back the curtain on decades of deception, starting with a major turning point in 1986—when President Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act into law.
Before that, vaccine manufacturers were getting hammered with lawsuits. Humphries explained that after the 1976 swine flu vaccine disaster, Guillain-Barré cases were piling up. It got so bad that the companies couldn’t even get insurance.
“Is this an unintended, or intended, consequence?”
U.S. agriculture isn’t nearing a trade war tariff crisis, it’s in a ‘full-blown crisis already,’ farmers say
The clock is ticking on trade deals that the U.S. will need to strike with many nations, most notably China, to avoid what President Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has described as an unsustainable tariff war. But in the U.S. farming sector, the damage has already been done and the economic crisis already begun.
U.S. agriculture exporters say the global backlash to Trump’s tariffs is punishing them, especially through a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products, leading to canceled export orders and layoffs.
Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, or AgTC, a leading export trade group for farmers, told CNBCthe number of canceled purchases of U.S. agricultural products should not be described as approaching a crisis. “It is a full-blown crisis already,” he said.
BRICS: China Officially Launches Plan to Promote Its Own Payment System
BRICS member China officially rolled out a plan to promote its own payment system to replace SWIFT. The Communist country aims to reduce US dollar dependency to confront Washington’s aggressive stance on trade and tariffs. The new plan was jointly released by the Shanghai municipal government and the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank.
The new payment system from BRICS member China will incorporate the Chinese yuan through the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). China wants to leverage its dominance in the manufacturing and trade sector and push the Chinese yuan for settlements.
This year, the US will run a deficit of about 7.5% of GDP. If we don’t cut that to 3% of GDP, we’re likely to face a significant debt crisis in the next few years.
This is not an issue that can wait. We need to do these cutbacks and adjustments while things are relatively… pic.twitter.com/53bJ5Q5beF
More Americans are financing groceries with buy now, pay later loans — and more are paying those bills late, survey says
A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.
The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.
In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.
“It has always been this way because gold IS the yardstick… and yardsticks by definition do not change!”
Gold Isn’t Going Up—Your Money is Just Losing Value
Whenever gold rises and I get excited as a gold investor, I’m often met with the familiar refrain: “Gold isn’t really going up—the dollar is just losing value.” I used to brush that off as a cliché or a semantics game, and honestly, it annoyed me. But eventually, I decided to dig deeper. I started analyzing the data visually—my favorite way to learn—and that’s when it really clicked: they were right. Gold wasn’t so much soaring as fiat or paper currencies were quietly eroding. Since then, I’ve made it a mission to help others see this clearly too—through compelling charts that drive the point home. And that’s exactly what I’m going to show you today.
Let’s start with a clear visual: the chart below shows gold’s performance since 2007 in several major world currencies: the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, and Australian dollar.
BREAKING: Top US Neuroscientist & Military Advisor Confirms Reports Are ‘Credible’ That Directed Energy Weapon Attacks Have Happened on US Soil And Targeted US Personnel Abroad; Exclusive New Records Reveal Exposure to “Microwave Weapon” After Intel Officer Discovered Secret Op.… pic.twitter.com/rghp127hrv
March home sales drop to their slowest pace since 2009
Higher mortgage rates and concern over the broader economy are making for a weak start to the all-important spring housing market.
Sales of previously owned homes in March fell 5.9% from February to 4.02 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. That’s the slowest March sales pace since 2009.
Sales were 2.4% lower than in March 2024 and slumped across all regions month to month. They fell hardest in the West, the priciest region of the country, down more than 9%. The West, however, was the only region to see a year-over-year gain, due to strong activity in the Rocky Mountain states, where job growth is strong.
“I assure you it will be far more than just “munitions”!”
Anduril Co-Founder Warns: U.S. Munitions Stockpile Would Last One Week In Hot Conflict
The United States would deplete its munitions stockpile if it entered into genetic warfare against a global superpower, Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens warns.
Stephens, who co-founded of the cutting-edge defense startup alongside Palmer Luckey, dropped the chilling warning on Auren Hoffman’s World of DaaS podcast.
“The reality is, if we got into a hot conflict with a great power, we would run out of munitions in a week,” Stephens told Hoffman. “We’ve built these capabilities that are incredibly exquisite, incredibly custom, with really complicated supply chains.”
“The answer to Erik’s question is; SPREADS and spreaders trading the gold/silver ratio. As for the rest of the article, Trump has reversed some very BAD policies…while adding some BAD ones of his own.”
Spooked house hunters are dropping out of the real-estate market as they confront economic uncertainty on many fronts
Jeremy Applebaum, a real-estate broker in Overland Park, Kan., was out of town when his buyer broke the news by text: They were pulling out of the home-buying process, spooked by the sudden downturn in the stock market.
“‘It’s frightening when you see thousands of dollars vanish,’” he said they told him.
In Miami, the same scenario played out with real-estate agent Ida Schwartz’s buyer. They also did not think it was worth sinking over $1 million into a home in today’s uncertain economic environment, particularly since they were not in a hurry to buy, she recalled them saying.
BillHolter.com 