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Kicking debt down the road

The Associated Press File PhotoUncut sheets of "Benjamins" — $100 bills — make their way through the printing process at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The Congressional Budget Office warned last week that the long-term outlook for the federal budget has worsened dramatically. The Associated Press File PhotoUncut sheets of "Benjamins" — $100 bills — make their way through the printing process at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The Congressional Budget Office warned last week that the long-term outlook for the federal budget has worsened dramatically.

By Times Free Press Staff June 21, 2015 4 min read

If at least one party in Washington, D.C., didn’t know it, the United States has a spending problem.

The Congressional Budget Office announced last week that “the long-term outlook for the federal budget has worsened dramatically over the past several years” and forecast that by 2040 spending on government health care, retirement programs and interest on the debt will raise the federal debt to more than 100 percent of economic output.

In other words, the debt to begin the year will be more than the entire amount of all the goods and services the country could expect to produce in that year.

The nonpartisan in-house congressional think tank made its announcement on the same day that President Barack Obama said he would no longer abide by the 2011 sequestration budget agreement he signed that raised the federal debt ceiling and forced automatic cuts in spending programs if new spending cuts were not determined by a bipartisan group.

Since the group did not reach an agreement, the sequestration cuts went into effect. They, in turn, have been given credit by most economists for the drop in the federal deficit.