By Kevin McCarthy

The publicly held debt as a share of GDP will exceed 60 percent this year. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), debt will reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020. The interest on this debt alone will be $916 billion annually, meaning that one in five tax dollars will be dedicated to making interest payments. By 2022, interest payments on the national debt will exceed yearly defense spending, and by 2037, yearly interest expenses will be double those of spending on defense — this is the same year the Social Security trust funds are expected to be exhausted.