Stop hot air about debt

by Lee Hamilton

A couple of months ago, the Congressional Budget Office issued a sobering report on the U.S. economy’s longterm prospects. Not to put too fine a point on it, we’re headed for the fiscal rocks. Federal spending accounts for about 20 percent of the nation’s GDP, the budget analysts note; if current trends continue, that will rise to fully 25 percent by 2040. Revenues will not keep up — they’ll amount to only 19 percent of GDP.

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