In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, spending on net interest has reached $514 billion, surpassing spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). Overall spending has totaled $3.9 trillion thus far. Spending on interest is also more than all the money spent this year on veterans, education, and transportation combined.
The US Air Force (USAF) FY2023 budget proposal to retire from service all of the older Block 20 variants of the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). The F-22 Block 20 fighters, which are used for only for training and not upgraded to the same capability as the more advanced Block 30/35 platforms, were proposed by the USAF to be withdrawn from service without documenting associated costs with running the remaining aircraft harder to accommodate flight training or upgrading the older aircraft. Avoiding upgrading the training version of the F22 would save $3.3 billion or more and the upgrade program would take 15 years.
The USAF operates 32 F-22 Block 20 fighters, which lack distinct upgrades compared to the 150 Block 30/35 iterations.
The US F-22 fleet is set for a USD 22 billion upgrade over the next decade, possibly keeping the fighter in service until the 2040s. this would be for about 142 combat usable F-22s.
The US Air Force has high costs for the NGAD, fighter. It will take an estimated USD 300 million per unit. The new B-21 raider stealth bomber would need about $600 million each. There are hundreds of billions spending for F35 procurement and maintenance and Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) programs. New technologies and drones are prompting a reevaluation of air dominance strategies. The cost of procurement to buy the advanced fighters and bomber is overshadowed by maintaining and operating the aircraft and other military systems.
Interest on the debt is currently the fastest growing part of the budget, nearly doubling from $345 billion (1.6 percent of GDP) in FY 2020 to $659 billion (2.4 percent of GDP) in 2023, and net interest is on track to reach $870 billion (3.1 percent of GDP) by the end of FY 2024.
By 2051, interest will be the largest line item in the budget.
Rising debt will continue to put upward pressure on interest rates. Without reforms to reduce the debt and interest, interest costs will keep rising, crowd out spending on other priorities, and burden future generations.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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The insane cost of our 5th generation fighter aircraft, and projected 6th generation is based on multiple factors, each of which can be “corrected”. One, which is beginning to change in some military contractors is moving away from MILSPEC. Military specifications for manufactures. These are rigid protocols that set (figuratively in stone) what you build at what technological level, and how you build it. This worked OK for say WW-2 when you had many different companies, that made wildly different products, suddenly all make, a whole lot of, the exact same one. The president of one company was quoted: “Before the war we made sewing machines, now we make Sherman tanks. So does a guy I know who used to make toasters”.
In traditional manufacturing (which MILSPEC is based on) once a design and function is agreed on, all changes are “froze out”. If you’ve ever created a new product, let alone technology, discussions in the group to settle on the “final” design can get quite umm, animated. This is the crux, and Achilles heel of traditional manufacturing. Our most advanced fighter, the F-22 was designed in the 1990’s. The term software update has been known to defense contractors since the 1970’s (Yeah, I’m old)
But today the physical design, materials, even the physical laws under which technology operates evolve somewhere daily. We went to fly by cable, to fly by wire, to fly by light. The latter much harder to electronically fry or screw with. Like knocking a drone or plane out of the sky with an EMP pulse. Our F-22’s radar is powerful enough to do this.
Problems: Procurement. What to build, where, and how many are (for the big stuff) political decisions. Resources, available professional talent, transportation, municipal infrastructure, human support services (schools, hospitals, etc.) are shockingly often, not even part of the equation. I’m working on a template to reduce the impact of irrational political actions (what’s in the “best interest to only a politician or political view) on awarding military contracts. We’ll see.
For now, I think I’ve observed at least one reason our fighter planes are so expensive. Seeing a plane being assembled, I saw the potential for advanced 3D printing, where you can change the technology, even the gross shape of what your building, while your building it (assumes you came up with something “better”). We know mass production. With 3d tech. we can mass produce individual, unique products. It can go from building up layers to being rapidly woven. Emerging after being spun into specific objects, like a really big spider spinning much more intricate things then a web.
Such “spintech” could create an object so quickly, it would be a blur. 3D printing and it’s offspring are set to be game changers in manufacturing, construction, medicine to name a few. But the real reason I saw making planes so expensive? Was how they were assembled.
Yes the plane was on a sort of assembly line, and the facility was loaded with many advanced machines. Some appeared one of a kind. (I have experience with one of a kind machines) And this plane had (a dozen, more?) people swarming in and all over it.
I got a close look, and saw each individual doing VERY specific, complex, coordinated work. I saw 21st century artisans building this complex machine, by hand. Any ballet could not have been so beautifully choreographed. No wonder their so expensive, so much is put together by hand! Will robotics automate that, I’m sure in time. But I wouldn’t care to watch it. And wouldn’t have to bother to buy pop corn.
Easy to get rid of the national debt – no pensions until the last 1 – 2 years of your life as sanctioned by Doctor opinion – if you have got the health and energy to Blog, and have no savings, you have the health and energy to be a Greeter at the local Walmart (which would also reduce supplemental government-issued medical coverages). Debt gone in a generation.
Military spending can’t go down. The World hasn’t been this dangerous and full of ‘world-domination’ level threats since the 80s – though more should go to R&D.
Not sure if the NGADs can be part of a drone fighter-quarter-backing startegy – one human piloted craft for every squadron of high-maneuverability drone fighters and their escorts/ support. That would be a good reason to continue.
There are acceleration limits a human pilot can tolerate. I suspect that our aircraft technology may already be near the limit so based upon that, the NGAD fighter jets’ piloted aircraft may not be highly survivable going against a very high-g capable enemy aircraft.
Our mind children can tolerate a lot more g’s than we can.
I don’t consider interests as being a problem as long as the credibility of the U.S.A. remains intact. Air dominance is a very important component of the military credibility of the U.S.A.
Our privately owned U.S.A. reserve notes and our Non-U.S. Non-Federal No-Reserve system make “paying off the national debt” inherently IMPOSSIBLE.
“Will Trillions in US Government Interest Costs Kill the NGAD Fighter?” No, though on the merits of the plane, maybe it should. Drones & AI can do more effectively than manned fighter jets. And cheap drones and anti-aircraft artillery are so good now, that fighter jets have to operate as remote attack vehicles, which could be done in other ways.
We are a monetarily sovereign nation. There’s no amount of money the federal government can create (not state or city, which are NOT monetarily sovereign). This has been backed up by Fed chairs Bernanke and Greenspan, in oft-repeated quotes, as well as many economists: https://mythfighter.com/2024/06/27/historical-claims-the-federal-debt-is-a-ticking-time-bomb-updated-june-21-2004/ among others contain the quotes.
In spite of the BRICS nations trying to create an alternative to the dollar, mostly due to sanctions and not due to U.S. federal debt, as they gain more members it becomes increasingly difficult to agree on how to do that. The dollar remains the strongest currency in the world, though it is less owned by countries we sanction than in the past.
National debts, or debt-to-GDP ratios, are meaningless when taken alone. Japan has the highest national debt in the world and North Korea one of the lowest because no one wants to lend to a lawless country like that, while Japan owes itself most of the Yen debt. Where would you rather live?
And about $6t of the U.S. debt is intraagency, money it owes itself. Debt is not really debt to the overall economy, it is money pumped into the economy. When such debt is paid down we have recessions, even depressions, as happened in 1836 when president Jackson paid down almost all the debt. The next decade or so were spent spending back money via debt, and we have never paid off the debt since. Here’s a chart of deficit reductions leading to recessions: https://mythfighter.com/2024/02/28/reawakening-the-inflationary-monster-u-s-monetary-policy-and-the-federal-reserve/. It happens that way every time. The stats are clear.
There IS a way to pay off the national debt without cutting or raising taxes. Simply bring back U.S. Notes – the “Greenbacks” first issued by president Lincoln during the Civil War. These are issued from the Treasury, not from a Central Bank – which did not exist in Lincoln’s time. As such, they are just “money” not counted as debt in the quarterly debt report, not subject to the debt limit either. Such money was the most popular kind in the late 19th century and the Constitution’s Art. 1, Sec. 8 gives Congress the authorization to issue money in any amount, for any reason, at any time. The Constitution says nothing about Central Banks, or any banking at all.
But mostly, we should be worried about what money is spent upon – though even misspent money circulates in the economy in a stimulative way, eventually – not how much is spent. More importantly, we should worry about rent-seekers sucking up the majority of money through non-productive means.
If you eliminate the Central Bank, or all banks themselves, how do you direct and manage the orderly distribution of money? (not wealth, but money). The much simpler nature of government and institutions in Lincolns time could allow for all money (and the power it embodied), to flow from the Treasury to every were else. Today I don’t see how that could work in an instant cash, or it’s electronic equivalent reality. But I’m not an economist (nor play one on TV…)
The debt will destroy the nation.
Cancel it.
We need to SHRINK our government, immediatly.
The answer is shrink our military budget, not capability…BUDGET. Giant aircraft carriers had their place…but no longer. Carriers are over 13 billion apeice, and that’s not even including the 80 aircraft!
We need a balanced budget amendment, inflation is super high, in part, because of extremely wreckless spending in D.C..
Sadly, Biden & Trump have shown themselves to not care about our national debt, despite us paying an ungodly sum on interest alone.
Of course.
It looks like the capability of drones, and their rapid advancements in Ukraine, have made a 6th gen fighter unnecessary.
Of course, I still wish our government would slash spending, even if it hurt my finances and retirement.