By Julianne Malveaux
(Trice Edney Wire) – 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.
Sunday’s 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.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux is a DC Based economist and author. juliannemalveaux.com.
