I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but we’ve got to have a serious talk about government spending.

The bottom line is that for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2025, the United States spent about $7 TRILLION and took in revenue of about $5.3 TRILLION.

That is a $1.8 TRILLION deficit.

That deficit brings our nation’s total debt to about $38.9 TRILLION.

Please note that a TRILLION has 12 zeroes. Big numbers — so big they seem almost meaningless. So, let’s put this into perspective, and make it personal.

• Interest alone on the national debt at a bargain rate of 4% is more than $1.5 TRILLION. With a population of about 341 million people, that amounts to about $4,400 per year for every man, woman and child in our country. Forever!

• Paying off the national debt, again assuming a 4% interest rate, would require annual payments of about $1.81 TRILLION for 50 years. Total payments over the 50 years would be over $90 TRILLION, with total interest of more than $51 TRILLION. Annual payments would be about $5,300 per individual, or more than $21,000 for a family of four. That, my friends, is more than the typical mortgage payment for Americans.

If that does not get your attention, I am not sure what will.

So, I think we can all agree we have a big problem today. But we are just getting started, with an estimated budget deficit of $1.9 TRILLION for 2026 — and estimates for higher interest costs plus rising Social Security and Medicare spending ahead.

Note that this is not political, it is pure economics. And while nearly all politicians give lip-service to the problem, there seems to be no appetite to solve it.

But it does not take a math whiz to know that you need to reduce spending, increase revenue, or some combination. Simple in concept, but apparently impossible in practice.

So, let’s first look at the current budget.

The biggest spending areas are Social Security (23%), national defense (14%), grants to state and local governments (11%), Medicare (13%) and interest on the debt (14%) — making up three-quarters of federal outlays in Fiscal Year 2025.

Spending

Revenue

Individual income tax (50%), payroll tax (34%), corporate tax (9%) and customs duties (4%) make up most of the revenue.

It seems worth noting that mandatory spending at 59% and interest at 14% mean that only 27% of our budget is discretionary — things that Congress can decide how to allocate between defense, education, employment, transportation, infrastructure, veterans services, and things like public health, environmental protection, law enforcement and housing assistance.

One U.S. senator suggested 6% across-the-board cuts that would lead to a balanced budget in five years. No matter how they are undertaken, spending cuts mean making tough and unpopular choices.

Of course, we can look at increasing revenue, and you all know that means higher taxes.

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, combined federal, state and local taxes already really add up for Californians.

Estimates suggest that low income earners pay about 20%; middle income earners pay about 30%, and high earners pay as much as 40% when you include income, payroll, sales and property taxes.

So, raising taxes is also likely to be very unpopular.

Perhaps we need to look at a combination of tough medicine with both spending cuts and tax increases.

But we must stop kicking the debt can down the road before it becomes uncontrollable.

And we have not even talked about California’s budget problems yet.