US debt tops $40 trillion, Americans left with the bill

JUST IN: US national debt tops $40 trillion for the first time in history, and it's growing fast.

America's national debt just crossed forty trillion dollars for the first time ever. Forty trillion. That's a number so big it stops meaning anything, which is exactly the problem.

Here's what it looks like on the ticker, and it isn't slowing down, Al Jazeera reports it's growing fast. This is money owed to investors, foreign governments, pension funds, and honestly, a big chunk to the US government itself.

That's the Treasury, the building writing the cheques. And that's the Capitol, the building that keeps approving them. Neither party has a serious plan to bend the curve, they just argue about whose spending counts as waste.

And the quiet cost is interest. Every dollar spent servicing this pile is a dollar not spent on anything you'd actually notice, roads, schools, defence, take your pick.

Forty trillion, first time in history, and no brakes in sight. That's the story.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.