Federal interest expense as a share of tax receipts
This chart shows federal interest payments as a share of federal receipts. It uses BEA national-accounts series via FRED and compares annualized flows; it is a broad debt-service burden measure, not the federal budget’s net-interest-to-revenue ratio or a forecast of fiscal stress.
What does it show?
Interest payments are consuming a growing share of federal receipts.
Methodology
Quarterly BEA NIPA series via FRED, both seasonally adjusted at annual rates: federal government interest payments (A091RC1Q027SBEA) divided by total federal government current receipts (FGRECPT; the pipeline falls back to current tax receipts, W006RC1Q027SBEA, if the total series is unavailable, and logs which it used). NIPA interest payments differ from the federal-budget concept of net interest outlays; total current receipts include social-insurance contributions, which keeps the ratio comparable to headline revenue discussions.