I've just remembered whichever version of Sim City I played as a kid used to have the option (and encourage?) to take on debt. I found the interest a killer.
I don't envy politicians having to run a country, knowing that 10% + of all government spending is just going towards interest payments for past spending.
As with all debt, you hope that it was used to buy assets that are earning more than the interest cost, and not just on a consumable.
Thinking about it, I wonder if this doesn't capture the whole picture. It is the percentage of spending, but doesn't capture whether that total spending denominator is itself more or less than the government is earning. Suppose one year, a government spent twice as much as it earned. Even if the interest payments stayed the same, wouldn't the "interest payments as a share of expenditure" halve that year?
I don't envy politicians having to run a country, knowing that 10% + of all government spending is just going towards interest payments for past spending.
As with all debt, you hope that it was used to buy assets that are earning more than the interest cost, and not just on a consumable.
There are high numbers here that must be difficult: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-government-expen...
Thinking about it, I wonder if this doesn't capture the whole picture. It is the percentage of spending, but doesn't capture whether that total spending denominator is itself more or less than the government is earning. Suppose one year, a government spent twice as much as it earned. Even if the interest payments stayed the same, wouldn't the "interest payments as a share of expenditure" halve that year?