Why Governments Keep Borrowing at the Short End

The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending · Jun 5, 2026 · 10m · transcript

Episode 33 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast explores why government treasuries overwhelmingly borrow short-term debt despite decades of warnings. Lucas and Luna walk through the specific mechanics of how the US Treasury issues bills, notes, and bonds, and why the average maturity of federal debt has fallen from about 70 months in 2001 to under 50 months today. They dig into the trade-off: short-term debt is cheaper but exposes taxpayers to refinancing risk — as the UK learned in the 2022 gilt crisis when a sudden jump in rates forced the Bank of England to intervene. They also look at a case from…