The U.S. government spent $659 billion this year paying off the interest on its debt, according to a Treasury report released Friday, as the nation’s widening fiscal imbalance and the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes dramatically raised the federal cost of borrowing.

Because the federal government spends more than it collects in tax revenue, the Treasury Department issues new debt to cover the rest of its payment obligations. That debt must be repaid with interest — costs that grow as the debt grows. And as the central bank has raised interest rates to cool inflation, the borrowing costs to the U.S. government are also way up.

This year’s sum was almost twice as much as two years ago. The government spent $476 billion paying off the interest on its debt last year and $352 billion doing so in 2021.

Read more at The Washington Post