From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.

The Treasury Department announced last month that the total national debt had surpassed $30 trillion for the first time.

That's 30 plus 12 zeros.

Just one trillion dollars laid end to end would stretch further than the distance of the Earth to the Sun.

Think of that times 30.

Two years ago, the Congressional Budget Office said that we wouldn't hit this level of debt until the end of 2025.

But we got there a lot sooner due to the trillions

that were spent battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

You would think that these unprecedented spending increases,

we're talking government expansions like never seen before,

would make legislators panic and stop the spending madness

as the pandemic ramps down.

Instead, Congress and the Biden administration are using the crisis to push for a permanently draconian federal government, one that seizes and controls endlessly increasing amounts

of national resources.

Thankfully, the Heritage Foundation recently released its 2022 budget blueprint,

a comprehensive roadmap for policymakers to reduce out-of-control federal spending

and restore fiscal sanity to Washington.

The blueprint identifies more than $12 trillion of spending cuts between 2022 and 2031 compared to current law.

The plan also includes more than 200 proposals to restore the federal government to its proper, limited role.

Today, David Ditch, a policy analyst in Heritage's Grover M. Herman Center for the federal

budget, one of the authors of the blueprint, explains how this guide for Congress will strengthen

financial health, economic vitality, and national security. Our conversation after this short

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