The U.S. government is currently financing its massive borrowing with ultralow interest i.o.u.’s, but this happy situation may not last much longer. Treasury officials now face enormous debt, an accumulation of short-term borrowings that are due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to return to normal once the Fed decides the emergency has passed.

Even as the Treasury attempts to lock in low interest rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent masses of homeowners into default on their mortgages during the last housing crunch.

With the national debt now over $12 trillion, the government’s tab for servicing the debt should exceed $700 billion a year in 2019 (up from $202 billion this year) even if annual budgets shrink dramatically. Other estimates have been much higher.

As problematic as the issue of rapidly escalating interest payments may seem, it is just one of many hurdles facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means. The surge in borrowing over the past several years may or may not have been a necessary response to the financial crisis, but there is little doubt that the United States’ long term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.

We are now faced with the challenge of climbing out of two very deep holes at once – as debt-ridden consumers, and as taxpayers whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone. The competing demands could embitter political debates over the size and scope of the government, the trade-offs between taxes and spending, and the bottom line questions about who ultimately should bear the burden. And regardless of who’s to blame in the end, inflation, higher interest rates, and rollover risk cannot be entirely handled by clever debt management strategy.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Economy