exported Authored 3 sources

The Interest Trap

The US pays $1 trillion in debt interest in 2026; CBO projects $16.2T in total interest costs by 2036 as debt reaches 120% of GDP — surpassing the post-WWII record during peacetime.

Sources (3)

Source	Publisher	Type	Date	Score
The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036 Congressional Budget Office	Congressional Budget Office	government	2026-02	97%
CBO Estimates $1 Trillion Deficit for First Five Months of FY 2026 Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget	Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget	think_tank	2026-03	93%
Interest Costs on the National Debt Peter G. Peterson Foundation	Peter G. Peterson Foundation	think_tank	2026-05	92%

Full Script

Narration + Stagehand commands

Commands like [map.highlight] are Stagehand directives — they control the map renderer and pass through schema validation before any visual effect reaches the public output.

[map.view lat=38.9 lon=-77.0 zoom=5]
[entity.propose id="city:washington_dc" type="city" name="Washington D.C." lon=-77.0369 lat=38.9072]
[entity.propose id="country:united_states" type="country" name="United States" lon=-95.7129 lat=37.0902]
[map.spotlight id="city:washington_dc"]
The United States will spend one trillion dollars on interest payments on its national debt in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire defense budget — and it is just the beginning of the curve.

[chat.say source="cbo_outlook_2026_2036"]
[map.view lat=39 lon=-98 zoom=3.5]
[map.highlight ids="country:united_states" color="#E53E3E" opacity=0.4]
The Congressional Budget Office projects federal debt held by the public will rise from one hundred one percent of GDP today to one hundred twenty percent by 2036 — surpassing the previous record set in 1946, when the US was paying for World War II. The difference is that this debt is accumulating during peacetime.

[scene.title kind=chapter eyebrow="Clio Short" title="The Interest Trap" subtitle="$1 Trillion Per Year"]
[scene.title kind=clear]
[chat.say source="crfb_fy2026_deficit_1t"]
In just the first five months of fiscal year 2026, the deficit hit one trillion dollars — on pace for a full-year deficit of one-point-nine trillion. Net interest payments will consume twenty-five-point-eight percent of all federal revenues by 2036 — meaning one in four tax dollars goes to creditors before a single government service is paid for.

[chat.say source="pgpf_interest_tracker_2026"]
[map.highlight ids="country:united_states" color="#F6AD55" opacity=0.5]
The One Big Beautiful Bill added four-point-one trillion to this trajectory. Interest costs on that legislation alone will add seven hundred billion over a decade. The CBO's ten-year interest bill: sixteen-point-two trillion dollars — more than the entire current national debt was just fifteen years ago.

[scene.title kind=outro title="The Interest Trap" subtitle="Follow Clio for more."]