On his Substack, Robert Reich provides this brief but important commentary on the national debt: “Psst: What No One Will Tell You About the National Debt (But I Will).”

Reich notes that the national debt has now crossed the “once-unthinkable threshold” of surpassing the GDP. So, we owe more than the value of all the goods and services we produce in a year.

This is not a problem in itself, contra some debt-fear-mongers. But it is a problem when we consider what the $1 trillion we spend each year on the interest payments for the debt could be used for instead. And, it’s a problem when we consider where those interest payments go, and why.

Thirty percent of the debt is held by foreign entities, and that can be a cause of concern. But Reich’s focus here is on the 70% held domestically, the major share by mutual funds, insurance companies, and banks. Thirty-five percent of those entities are owned by the richest 1% of Americans. And the growing ownership of the debt by the wealthiest of Americans have gone hand-in-hand with the massive tax cuts that they have received.

Reich says:

So, you see what’s happened? 

The wealthiest Americans used to pay higher taxes to finance the government. Now, the government pays wealthy Americans interest on a swelling debt, caused largely by lower taxes on wealthy Americans.

Which means a growing portion of everyone else’s taxes are now paying wealthy Americans interest on those loans, instead of paying for government services everyone needs.

Please help me do what Reich urges: “Know what’s happened, and pass it on.”