Congressional Budget Chief Downplays Panic Over $39 Trillion US Debt Even As Jerome Powell Warns Path Is Unsustainable

The director of the Congressional Budget Office is bucking the prevailing pessimism on America’s fiscal trajectory, but he is not dismissing the urgency.
Dr. Phillip Swagel, who leads the nonpartisan agency that provides independent budgetary analysis to Congress, told Fortune in an exclusive interview that his optimism is rooted in experience, not denial.
Eye-Watering Numbers
Public debt stands at more than $39 trillion. Interest payments now exceed $1 trillion annually. Between October 2025 and March 2026, the government paid nearly $530 billion in interest alone, more than $22 billion a week, according to CBO preliminary estimates. The debt-to-GDP ratio currently stands at approximately 122 percent.
Why Swagel Is Not Alarmed
Swagel was at the Treasury during the 2008 financial crisis an