A new opinion column published by Fox News argues that the United States is barreling toward a fiscal crisis, pointing to a national debt that has now surpassed $40 trillion — a figure the author calculates works out to roughly $117,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.
The piece, written by Les Rubin, contends that the federal government’s habit of spending more than it collects has become a structural problem rather than a temporary one. Deficits have run in the multi-trillion-dollar range year after year, the column notes, with no plan currently in place to reverse course.
Rubin draws particular attention to Social Security and Medicare, writing that both programs carry unfunded obligations measured in the tens of trillions of dollars. He warns that their trust funds are on track to be exhausted within a few years, which under current law would trigger automatic benefit cuts.
Interest payments on the debt are also highlighted as a growing drag on the federal budget. According to the column, those payments already exceed $1 trillion annually and now consume more than one-fifth of all federal revenue, a share the author says is still climbing.
A Warning From the Government’s Own Watchdog
The column cites the Government Accountability Office, which has stated that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path that poses serious economic, national security and societal challenges. Rubin frames this as a nonpartisan, mathematical reality rather than a talking point from either political party.
His central worry is what happens if investor confidence in U.S. debt erodes. If buyers of government debt eventually demand higher returns to compensate for risk, he argues, the government could be forced to pay rates it cannot sustain — a scenario he describes as the point at which a slow-building problem turns into an acute crisis.
No Painless Fix, Column Argues
Rubin does not pretend there’s an easy solution. He writes that addressing deficits of this scale will require spending restraint, entitlement reform and stronger economic growth — along with political choices that will be unpopular with many voters. His argument is that those costs, however real, are smaller than the damage that would follow a genuine fiscal collapse, when credit tightens, businesses fail and government commitments become harder to keep.
Rather than looking to Washington to solve the problem on its own, Rubin places the responsibility on ordinary citizens. He argues that Congress will act only when the public understands the stakes and demands change through sustained political pressure — not because of another government report or a single speech from a president.
The column closes with an appeal to intergenerational responsibility, arguing that the current generation has an obligation to leave the country in at least as strong a financial position as it inherited, rather than passing along an unsustainable debt load to children and grandchildren.
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