In January 1918, some ten months before the end of World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson had written a list of proposed war aims which he called the Fourteen Points..
Today, discretionary spending makes up less than 40 percent of the entire budget. Net Interest-Net interest is the only part of future spending that cannot be reduced by legislative action because it is money that must be paid to service the U.S. debt.
5 Largely because of the Federal Reserveâs previous efforts to keep interest rates low during and after the Great Recession, the U.S. government is paying historically low rates on its debt. In fiscal 2016, according to the Treasury Department, the average interest rate on the public debt was 2.232%; while the Fed has begun nudging rates higher, the average interest rate in July was still just 2.279%.