How Interest Rates Could Affect Deficits and Debt

Interest rates have an enormous effect on how much we pay each year on servicing our debt. In the Budget and Economic Outlook from January, CBO estimated that 1 percent higher interest rates each year could increase deficits by $1.3 trillion over ten years. CBO also estimated a few other "rules of thumb" to show how changes in inflation and economic growth have significant impacts on budget forecasts. The projections show that lower economic growth of just 0.1 percentage point each year could increase deficits by $310 billion over ten years, while 1 percentage point higher inflation each year could add almost $900 billion to deficits.

With that in mind, CBO recently released an analysis in response to a request from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) looking more in depth at what different interest rate scenarios would do to deficits and debt over a ten-year window.

^{*CBO projects baseline deficits to total $6,971 billion over the 2012-2021 period.}

CBO modeled four different scenarios: their current law projections, one based on the average rate from 1991-2000 (scenario 1), one based on the average rate from 1981-1990 (scenario 2), and one based on the ten highest interest rate projections in the Blue Chip economic forecasts of October 2010 and February 2010 (scenario 3).