Rather than look at how much the government is spending on debt servicing as a share of all expenses, let's take a look at what it means as a share of the government's income from its own sources.
Debt servicing is the amount spent to pay the interest on public debt. Own-source revenues excludes federal transfers and borrowing.
Year
|
Percent of Own-Source
|
2016b
|
21
|
2015
|
16
|
2014
|
07
|
2013
|
06
|
The percentage is a function of the amount spent to pay interest on the public debt and the amount of money the government earned from its own sources.
Debt servicing tripled in four years, going from $360 million to more than $1.0 billion. Own-source revenues dropped by about a billion dollars, going from $5.762 billion in 2013 to $4.775 billion in the 2016 budget.
That's a really good indicator of how rapidly the government's financial situation deteriorated.
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