U.S. to Face “Reckoning” Over Its $38 Trillion National Debt

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has issued a stark warning about the soaring US national debt, saying that if the current fiscal trajectory continues without a significant increase in economic growth, “there will be a reckoning on this,” Nick Lichtenberg reported for Fortune.

The increase from $37 trillion to $38 trillion represented the fastest growth rate outside of the pandemic period.

Speaking on The David Rubenstein Show with Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, the investment bank chief was asked about the current national debt level, which now stands at a staggering $38 trillion.

“Some people would say that’s a lot,” Rubenstein said. Solomon responded that people he speaks with are concerned not only about the sheer size of the debt but also about how it has “accelerated” over the last five years.

“It doesn’t seem like we have the ability to pull it back,” he said.

Solomon argued that aggressive fiscal stimulus has become “kind of embedded” in how democratic economies operate.

The debt, he noted, has ballooned significantly since the financial crisis, increasing from roughly $10 trillion in 2008 to more than three times that amount today.

The pace of debt accumulation has quickened even further in 2025, with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation calculating that the increase from $37 trillion to $38 trillion represented the fastest growth rate outside of the pandemic period.

“Adding trillion after trillion to the debt and budgeting-by-crisis is no way for a great nation like America to run its finances,” the foundation’s CEO Michael Peterson said in a statement provided to Fortune, shortly after the Treasury confirmed the new milestone.

Solomon told Rubenstein that if the government continues refinancing its debt at current rates, the total could “grow into the low forties, you know, for sure.”

He emphasized that the solution to the mounting debt problem lies not in higher taxes or new revenue streams but in faster economic growth.

“The revenue path” out of this problem, he said, isn’t as viable as “the growth path.” He stressed the “monstrous” difference between compounded growth of 3% versus the current 2% trend in terms of managing the debt burden.