DEBT SIGNAL
2026

A Visual Guide to Where Your Federal Tax Dollars Go

NATIONAL DEBT
$40,050,000,000,000
↑ Growing at $91,549/sec (est.)
Crossed $40T: Aug 19, 2026

THE FULL PICTURE
FY2026 · ~$6.75T Total
MANDATORY $4.06T · 60%
  • Social Security $1.24T
  • Medicare $0.93T
  • Medicaid $0.62T
  • Other $0.13T
DEBT SERVICE $1.14T · 17%
◄ #2 LARGEST
  • $3.05B per day
  • $127M per hour
THIS CHART $1.69T · 25%
  • What Congress votes on
CBO baseline (mandatory) · Enacted appropriations (discretionary)

⚠ Debt service exceeds the entire non-defense discretionary budget
⚠ Debt service is the 2nd largest federal expenditure — trailing only Social Security



Data: OMB, CRS, CBO
Concept: J. Ryman (2007)
Created August 2026
D3.js BSD licensed

What Is Discretionary Spending?

This poster shows discretionary spending — the ~27% of the federal budget that Congress votes on each year. The remaining ~73% is mandatory spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt) and is not shown here. If it were, the entire poster you're looking at would represent about one-quarter of a much larger chart.