Elon Musk has thrown his weight behind a ruthless proposal by Warren Buffett to ‘fire’ Congress if they fail to balance the books, as the US national debt officially breached the $39 trillion (£30.7 trillion) mark this week.
With the debt now growing at a staggering $7.2 billion (£5.7 billion) every single day and currently stands at $38.86 trillion, or 124% of the economy, the Tesla CEO endorsed the ‘Oracle of Omaha’s’ radical 2011 ultimatum: pass a law making every sitting member of Congress ineligible for re-election if the deficit exceeds 3% of GDP.
‘100%. This is the way,’ Musk declared, as 18 March 2026 Treasury data confirmed the debt-to-GDP ratio has spiralled to 137%. The endorsement comes as billionaire investor Ray Dalio warns that the US is teetering on a ‘financial heart attack,’ fueled by high interest rates and a ‘tectonic shift’ in the world order that could leave the American economy permanently isolated.
‘I can end the deficit in five minutes,’ Buffet said in a 2011 interview. ‘You just pass a law that says that anytime there’s a deficit of more than 3% of the GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection. Now, you’ve got the incentives in the right place.’
In June 2025, Musk said that Buffett’s idea ‘is the way’ to deal with the national debt crisis. Many others are also sounding the alarm, with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) recently cautioning that the average interest rate on the national debt could exceed economic growth by fiscal year 2031.
‘Once interest rates exceed the growth rate…primary deficits will lead debt to grow indefinitely,’ the CRFB warned in March. This think tank also endorses Buffett’s 3% of GDP target.
Although Congress members haven’t really liked the idea of being replaced over the national debt, several bipartisan representatives introduced a resolution in January to lower the deficit to 3% of GDP.
In 2024, Buffett forecast that businesses would face higher taxes. ‘They may decide that someday they don’t want the fiscal deficit to be this large, because that has some important consequences. And they may not want to decrease spending a lot, and they may decide they’ll take a larger percentage of what we earn, and we’ll pay it,’ The Oracle of Omaha had stated at the Berkshire Hathaway 2024 annual shareholders meeting. Back then, the national debt was over $34 trillion, or 122% of US GDP.
‘My best speculation is that US debt will be acceptable for a very long time, because there is not much alternative,’ Buffett had said.
We Are Very Close To A Recession: Dalio
Dalio has been warning of a recession for quite some time now. He said in an interview that US President Donald Trump’s economic plan could result in ‘something worse than a recession.’
‘Right now, we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession,’ Dalio stated in mid-2025. ‘And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.’
Trump’s policy actions, especially his tariff play, triggered global economic chaos, but Dalio is worried that the US could end up isolated as its top trading partners sign cross-border agreements that exclude the world’s largest economy.
‘But by and large, it’s changing the world order in a way which is making it more inefficient and actually causing growth around the United States,’ the billionaire investor added.
Tariffs, along with mounting national debt and a rising superpower challenging the existing superpower, could drive ‘profound changes’ in the world order, and ‘such times are very much like the 1930s,’ Dalio explained.
Introducing tariffs in a stable or chaotic way can make all the difference, and the current approach is akin to ‘throwing rocks into the production system’ or highly disruptive, according to Dalio.
$40 Trillion By October: The Road To 2031
The Peterson Foundation projects that at the current ‘pace of profligacy,’ the US will hit the $40 trillion (£31.5 trillion) debt milestone by the end of October 2026. This trajectory is creating a ‘debt spiral’ where the government must borrow more just to pay the interest on what it already owes.
| Fiscal Metric | 2024 Level | 2026 Status (Current) | 2031 Projection |
| National Debt | $34 Trillion | $39.02 Trillion | $51.1 Trillion |
| Debt-to-GDP Ratio | 122% | 137% | 168% |
| Daily Debt Increase | $5.4 Billion | $7.23 Billion | $9.8 Billion |
| Interest Rate (Avg) | 3.1% | 3.35% | 4.8% |
By 2031, the average interest rate on the national debt will exceed economic growth, as CRFB has cautioned. Once this threshold is crossed, the debt begins to grow ‘indefinitely,’ regardless of how much the government collects in taxes.
The ‘DOGE’ Factor: Musk’s War On Waste
Musk’s endorsement of the Buffett plan isn’t just social media bluster; it aligns with his ongoing role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The initiative has already reported £87 billion ($110 billion) in ‘contract and grant savings’ by mid-March 2026. However, critics point out that even these massive cuts are a ‘drop in the ocean’ compared to the $1.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) annual deficit.
The radical nature of the ‘5-minute plan’ highlights the desperation of the current fiscal landscape. As Buffett himself noted back in 2024, ‘higher taxes are coming’ because the alternative, uncontrolled debt, carries ‘catastrophic consequences’ that no amount of efficiency can fix.
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