Washington spent more on interest than on national defense.

Washington spent $1.052 trillion on net interest in fiscal 2026. That exceeded the $965.160 billion spent on national defense. The comparison gives scale to a bill that pays for borrowing already undertaken before the next spending promise is made.

Split that interest bill across everyone in the country and it comes to about $3,070 a person. That’s our math: $1.052 trillion divided by the Census Bureau’s population estimate of roughly 343 million.

Treasury’s October 16 accounts recorded a $1.992 trillion annual deficit. It was up $217.104 billion from fiscal 2025. The accounting year ran from October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026.

Money coming in rose about $3.20 for every $100 of the previous year’s receipts. Spending rose about $5.50 per $100 of the previous year’s outlays. Those are the 3.2% and 5.5% increases calculated from Treasury’s totals.

Three numbers that get mixed together

The deficit measures one year’s shortfall between spending and revenue. Debt measures accumulated borrowing still outstanding. Interest measures the cost of financing that borrowing.

Treasury recorded $5.403327 trillion in receipts and $7.395800 trillion in outlays for fiscal 2026. Those totals produced the annual gap. The trillion-dollar net-interest bill is part of the spending that has to be accounted for within the budget.

The tariff number needs its refunds

Customs duties, the import taxes commonly called tariffs, generated $317.804 billion in gross collections. Refunds totaled $144.586 billion. Net receipts were $173.219 billion, below the previous year’s $194.866 billion.

After refunds, less tariff revenue remained than in the previous year. Gross collections alone would miss that reversal.

Gross debt service and net interest are different measures. The defense comparison here uses net interest.

Reuters described the annual deficit as the largest since fiscal 2021 and the third largest in nominal dollars. Nominal means the dollar total before adjusting for inflation. A historical rank on that basis does not establish the burden relative to the size of the economy.

A slogan still needs a budget behind it

Republican Senator Rick Scott urged both parties to cut spending, balance the budget and repay debt in an October 16 statement. He didn’t say which programs he would cut to get there.

In an October 14 OPB interview, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley argued for targeting wasteful defense spending and reversing Republican tax breaks he saw as favoring wealthy households. His position concerned what public money should support and who should contribute.

Fiscal watchdog Maya MacGuineas proposed aiming for borrowing equal to $3 per $100 of economic output, a deficit of 3% of GDP. Her October 16 recommendations also called for avoiding new borrowing beyond the baseline and saving twice the amount of any essential new cost.

That last comparison uses gross domestic product, or GDP, a measure of the economy’s output. Her proposal supplies a benchmark to debate. It is the watchdog’s preferred strategy, rather than an adopted government budget.

Reuters reported a Treasury official’s estimated deficit-to-GDP ratio, but the official did not disclose the GDP estimate used. That limits how closely the comparison can be checked.