Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, has warned that the United States is on an “unsustainable fiscal path” as America’s national debt continues to rise, The Hill reports.

“The US federal government is on a precarious fiscal path. This means that the debt is growing faster than the economy. Therefore, it is not sustainable. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement,” Powell said after being asked during an interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” if there were any dangers to the U.S. economy.

According to official data released by the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. national debt topped $34 trillion earlier this year, a new record, just 3 months after it topped the $33 trillion mark.

Democrats and President Joe Biden’s Republicans in the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, engaged in tough months of negotiations last year, with the sides reaching an agreement on another suspension of the U.S. debt limit just days earlier. the federal government defaulted.

Renowned economist Nassim Taleb, one of the few experts who predicted the 2008 economic crisis, warned just last week that the US debt would continue to rise, saying that the situation was causing them to face a “death spiral”.

“As long as you have a Congress that extends the debt limit and makes deals because they’re afraid of the consequences of making the right decision, because that’s the political structure of the political system, you end up with a death spiral,” he said at this week’s Universa Investments event. investment fund, where he works as a CSO (“Chief Scientific Officer”).

The head of the Fed says that the US economy is “in good shape”.

The warnings from Taleb and Powell come as the United States is in an election year, with politicians paying more attention to rising national debt, which has otherwise become a constant for administrations in Washington, whether Democratic or Republican.

But the Fed chairman says overall the US economy is “in a good position” as it grew 3.3% in the fourth quarter of last year after an impressive 5.2% growth in the previous quarter.

Inflation has also fallen sharply from a peak of 9% in the summer of 2022, reaching 3.4% last December.

However, opinion polls show Americans are unhappy with President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Jan. 26 showed him ahead of former President Donald Trump by 6 percentage points in the polls.