The national debt is on the cusp of a grim milestone, but it’s one of the least discussed topics at the Republican National Convention this week.

President Joe Biden hasn’t mentioned it much either as he has campaigned across the country.

Outstanding government debt stood at $34.9 trillion ($34,940,154,000,000 to be somewhat more precise) as of Tuesday, according to the latest data from the Treasury Department.

That’s a debt load that now represents over 120% of GDP. Earlier this year, the cost of interest payments alone passed the cost of defense spending.

The psychologically important $35 trillion milestone will likely be crossed sometime between this week’s Republican National Convention and when the Democrats gather in a few weeks’ time in Chicago — if debt continues to grow by an average of about $8 billion a day.

All told, the debt could represent 166% of America’s GDP by 2054.

Yet a Yahoo Finance review of this week’s flood of political commentary — both Republicans in Milwaukee and Biden on the campaign trail — underlines a political reality of this election season: This historic debt is simply not a front-burner issue.

“We stand for fiscal sanity, for low taxes, and for reduced debt,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday night.

What the line contained in snappiness it perhaps lacked in internal consistency. Lowering taxes is likely to increase deficits and debt.

“Our government sold us a false bill of goods with the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis loading up our national debt that falls on our generation’s shoulders,” added former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during his speech.

He overlooked how 2017 tax cuts and other policies enacted by Trump as president have contributed mightily to the current total.

The debt rose by nearly $8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. Biden is on pace to oversee a similar rise. In total, the national debt has ballooned by more than 70% over the last 7.5 years, fueled by a flood of new spending as well as these obligations stretching back decades.

All told, the vast majority of the major convention speeches so far this week haven’t brought up debt or deficits at all, according to a review of transcripts and videos. The Republican platform offers promises to cut “wasteful government spending” but doesn’t discuss debt or deficits directly.

It’s a notable shift for the Republicans who in years past campaigned on ideas like a balanced budget amendment and fielded major candidates who rose through the ranks as members of the deficit hawk wing of the party.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news