The Solutions
Today we have a total Federal debt of over $34 trillion dollars. The interest alone on this debt is rapidly approaching $1 trillion dollars a year. Congress continues to have battles yearly on extending the Federal debt limit. Even though over 75% of voters believe deficit reduction should be one of Congress’ top three priorities negotiating over the debt ceiling and discussing cuts is something that never happens in Washington. According to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) measure of central government debt, the U.S. federal government is among the most indebted governments in the world. Not long ago (2001) the U.S. federal debt was 42 percent of GDP. Currently, it is over 100% of GDP. To reduce our annual deficits which, continue to feed our current debt burden we must rein in the largest mandatory spending programs. Social Security and Medicare continue to be a larger and larger share of our budget and the primary drivers of our long-term deficits. Unfortunately, now is the time for our lawmakers to focus on long term sustainability, as further delaying the process will only make an eventual fiscal reckoning much more painful. When politicians put these programs off limits they are merely thinking of their next election and not the future health of our nation and its citizens.