Everything costs more than it used to. Groceries. Rent. Car insurance. A trip to the doctor. We all feel it, and we talk about it all the time.
But there is one cost nobody puts on the table. It never shows up on a receipt. It makes everything else harder. And we are quietly handing the bill to our grandchildren.
It is the national debt.
How we got here
The debt is now more than $39 trillion — a number so big it stops meaning anything. So, forget the number and look at how we got here. Both parties built this, taking turns:
- Bush: about $5 trillion — tax cuts, two wars, the 2008 crash.
- Obama: about $9 trillion — digging out of the Great Recession.
- Trump's first term: almost $8 trillion — tax cuts and the pandemic.
- Biden: almost $8.5 trillion — recovery spending and the rising cost of borrowing.
- Trump again: the line climbs past $39 trillion.
The numbers are round, and experts argue over who owns which dollar. Nobody argues about the pattern: for twenty-five years, both sides spent more than they took in.
What it costs us right now
Every year, before we pay for a single road, school, or soldier, we pay the interest on what we already borrowed. This year that's almost $1 trillion — more than we spend on our entire military. And it buys us nothing. No new bridge. No teacher. No lower grocery bill. It just pays the rent on yesterday's borrowing.
Does any of this make life cheaper
We're all worried about the cost of living, so ask a simple question: does this borrowing lower your bills? It doesn't. It never has.
It hurts you twice. Every dollar spent on interest is a dollar that can't go to anything real. And when the government borrows this much, it competes for money and keeps interest rates high — on your mortgage, your car loan, your credit card. So, the debt doesn't just fail to make life cheaper. It quietly makes it more expensive.
In ten years, my grandson turns 16. He'll start his adult life owing money he never borrowed. Stay on this road, and fifteen to twenty cents of every federal dollar will go straight to interest — money that will never build his school or fix his road. That's not a number on a page. That's his future, spent before he gets here.
What we can do
My mother used to say, "Kam, you cannot clap with one hand." Both sides are guilty. One won't touch taxes. The other won't touch spending. So, the bill grows, and we keep paying for the silence.
We don't have to. It starts with refusing to stay quiet. Talk about it at the dinner table. Share it. Make the debt as normal a thing to bring up as gas prices — because it sits behind all of them. Silence is how it grew. Noise is how it stops.
Then, when someone asks for your vote, ask one question back: the interest on our debt now eats one of every seven federal dollars — what will you cut, or what taxes will you change, to fix it? "We'll cut waste" is not an answer. It's a dodge. Make them give you a real one.
This isn't a left problem or a right problem. It's a math problem. And the people who'll pay for it are too young to vote today.
We keep saying we want life to be affordable again. We can't until we face this. So, stop pretending the bill isn't coming. Our grandchildren are counting on us to do the math while there's still time to fix it.
Authors Bio:Kam Shenai is Co-Founder of AAPI Coming Together (ACT Florida). He holds an MS from UC Berkley. Currently serves as Chair of the Myrtle Creek District Board and on the Board of Trustees for UCF Lake Nona Hospital. He is a patient advocate with the National Kidney Foundation. Kam is also a member of the League of Women Voters of Orange County