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On Monday a commentary article in Fortune magazine analyzed the Treasury Department’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025 which were released last week. The numbers were alarming. The official balance sheet liabilities plus the off-balance-sheet obligations equal $136.2 trillion, which is about five-times the annual gross domestic product. Based off these numbers, the authors concluded that the U.S. is insolvent.
“Congress has clearly lost control of the nation’s finances. America is facing a fiscal catastrophe. The reckoning, long deferred, is becoming impossible to ignore,” Fortune said.
With the national debt reaching $39 trillion on Wednesday the House Budget Committee’s Chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington called for a Constitutional amendment on deficits Friday, saying the debt is an “existential threat to the future of our nation.”
It is important to understand the size of one trillion to appreciate the sheer scale of debt the government has gotten itself into. One billion is one thousand millions, and one trillion is one thousand billions.
- A million seconds is 12 days.
- A billion seconds is 31 years.
- A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
Fortune Magazine created an analogy of the financial position the U.S. is in if it were a household:
Most people cannot relate to trillion-dollar figures on a government ledger. So consider this: divide every number by 100 million — drop eight zeros — and federal finances look like a household budget in freefall.
That household earns $52,446 and spends $73,378 — running a $20,932 annual deficit. Its total liabilities and unfunded promises amount to $1,361,788 against just $60,554 in assets, leaving it $1.3 million in the hole. Uncle Sam, by any accounting standard, is insolvent.
Specifically, the U.S. holds $6.06 trillion in total assets, but has $47.78 trillion in total liabilities as of September 30, 2025. That liability amount does not however include the Democrat Socialist programs like FDR’s Social Security and LBJ’s Medicare.
The consolidated balance sheet position got worse by nearly $2.07 trillion between 2024 and 2025. That means for fiscal year 2025, the government’s assets minus its liabilities equal negative $41.72 trillion – the liabilities are now eight times the value of its reported assets.
“The largest drivers were a $2 trillion increase in federal debt and interest payable (now $30.33 trillion) and a $438.8 billion increase in federal employee and veteran benefits payable (now $15.47 trillion),” Fortune said.
Fortune reported that the numbers behind the socialist programs Washington created in the 20th century, Social Security and Medicare, were even more alarming.
“The 75-year unfunded social insurance obligation surged by $10.1 trillion in a single year, rising from $78.3 trillion in FY 2024 to $88.4 trillion in FY 2025 — driven primarily by a $6.9 trillion jump in projected Medicare Part B shortfalls and a $2.5 trillion increase for Social Security. The Treasury’s Statement of Long-Term Fiscal Projections shows the 75-year fiscal gap widening from 4.3% of GDP in FY 2024 to 4.7% in FY 2025,” Fortune said. “If the $88.4 trillion in 75-year off-balance-sheet obligations were added to the $47.8 trillion in official balance sheet liabilities, total federal obligations would now exceed $136.2 trillion — roughly five times U.S. annual GDP.”
The U.S. government has taken note. Another article from Fortune magazine published Monday detailed what the House Budget Committee’s chairman, Republican Rep. Jodey Arrington called an “existential threat to the future of our nation.”
“It took roughly 200 years to accumulate the first $1 trillion. Now we add that in a matter of months. Every child in America today carries a $530,000 share of this debt—a crushing legacy we must reverse. Compounding the problem, we now spend more than $1 trillion a year just on interest to service our debt—more than the entire defense budget and triple the amount when Biden took office,” Arrington said.
In response to the runaway debt, Arrington called for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution – in hope of enacting an amendment to the Constitution on budget deficits.
“Here’s the sad, sobering, and stunning truth: Despite the urgency of our fiscal crisis, Congress is paralyzed—unable to meet the urgency of the moment. So, if Washington won’t act, then it’s time to look beyond our nation’s capital. The Founders gave us another path in Article V of the Constitution, empowering the states and the American people to step in and demand fiscal discipline,” the Budget Committee Chairman said. “I’m calling on Congress to convene an Article V Convention. It’s time to restore sanity in our nation’s capital and reverse the curse looming large over this country.”
