A new Bloomberg report this week has found that it appears the yearly interest payments on the US national debt have surged to above $1 trillion as of the end of October.

The Bloomberg report examined US Treasury data regarding the outstanding debt balances of the government each month, as well as the average total of the interest it pays.

It found that over the last 19 months, the annualized cost of the national debt has doubled due to rising interest rates increasing the costs of borrowing, leading it to now represent 15.9% of the entire fiscal year 2022 budget as of last month, according to the outlet.

In the report, Bloomberg’s analysts wrote, “This high proportion of interest payments as a share of federal spending has precedent, as the portion before 2000 was over 14% in most years.”

They added, “The challenge for the government is tempering mandatory spending and trying to reduce the need to issue more debt. That’s the reason we see interest payments climbing even though we forecast lower Treasury yields.”

The outlet noted, the present US fiscal policy, which entails massive amounts of borrowing, as interest rates on the national debt are soaring and driving up borrowing costs, has raised concerns with onlookers. In August, these concerns led Fitch, the ratings agency, to downgrade US government debt. Meanwhile on Friday, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the outlook for the US credit rating, based on the same criteria and concerns.