‘Cut up the credit cards:’ Congress is getting brutal about ‘embarrassing’ $31 trillion national debt

The value of debt held by the public has officially surpassed the size of the U.S. economy, and members of Congress are increasingly sounding the alarm over the fiscal trajectory of their nation.

As of March 31, debt held by the public stood at $31.27 trillion, while nominal GDP over the prior 12-month period was an estimated $31.22 trillion—pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to 100.2%, according to a press release issued Thursday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), based on new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

It marks yet another threshold for the U.S. borrowing burden, which now requires more than $1 trillion in interest payments every year.

Cautionary quips are coming from many corners of the economic sphere: Fed chairman Jerome Powell wants policymakers to have an adult conversation about spending, while Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio has long warned of an economic “heart attack” in which public investment is crowded out by service payments on the debt.

And Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said only this week he expects...