The Mandatory Spending Anchor Dragging America’s Finances Down

For years, the federal government has been running on a simple but unsustainable formula: spend more than it takes in, borrow to make up the difference, and hope that interest rates stay low enough to keep the whole thing from collapsing. That worked for a while, but that future is in doubt.

Mandatory spending – specifically, Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the national debt – has overtaken the federal budget, swallowing up over 58 percent of total expenditures as of FY 2023. This isn’t discretionary spending, where Congress debates the merits of a program and decides how much to allocate and where much of the debate focuses. These are autopilot obligations, growing every year regardless of economic conditions or political priorities. In 1966, they made up just over a quarter of the budget. Now, they dominate it. And when the government spends more on interest than on national defense, the question isn’t whether this is sustainable – it’s how much longer we can pretend it is.

Like an anchor tied to a sinking ship, mandatory spending is dragging America’s finances deeper into crisis. Every year, the burden gets heavier, and every year, lawmakers pretend they can swim against it without cutting the rope. But the numbers don’t lie – this spending isn’t just weighing down our economy, it’s pulling us under.

Most members of Congress are avoiding the tough conversations we need to have. Instead of putting Social Security and Medicare on a sustainable path or other structural spending fixes, lawmakers are doing what they do best: issuing press releases about fiscal responsibility while letting the problem get worse. While Elon Musk’s DOGE claims to have already identified over $1 billion per day in spending cuts, it hasn’t provided much in the way of specifics. Meanwhile, President Trump is calling for a balanced budget while proposing trillions in tax cuts.

The reality is this: no amount of efficiency improvements will fix a budget that is structurally unbalanced. Cutting bloat has its place, but without serious efforts to secure Social Security and Medicare, these programs will continue expanding, deficits will continue deepening, and interest payments will continue rising. Beyond that, any long-term fix to our budget crisis will likely need both spending cuts and increased government revenues – not just one or the other. Washington’s refusal to engage with this problem ensures that future generations will inherit higher taxes, weaker services, and an economy increasingly burdened by debt.

To be sure, there are outliers. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy is one example of a serious lawmaker working diligently to try and save Social Security before it goes under. But the longer policymakers as a whole delay, the fewer options they have. There is no serious debate over whether spending must be controlled – the only real question is whether Congress will act before the crisis forces its hand. If lawmakers continue their pattern of avoidance, the decision won’t be theirs to make.