Yuval Levin wrote yesterday at
National Review Online about the release of the Congressional Budget Office long-term budget projections. The future the report portends is depressing:
[Last year the] CBO projected that our national debt would be 91% of GDP in 2021; they now say it will be 101% of GDP in 2021—that is, a decade from now our debt will be larger than our economy, and of course still growing quickly.
By 2030, they project it will top 150% of GDP, and by 2037 it will be 200% of GDP. They assume it will continue to grow swiftly after that, but (although they extend long-range projections for spending and revenues all the way to 2085) their specific numerical projections for debt stop after 2037, when we cross 200% of GDP.
Levin notes that this is our fate if we continue along the current path of entitlement spending and Obamacare. If we reform the former and eliminate the latter we can save our children and grandchildren from economic ruin, but first we have to understand where the boat the president and his party have embarked us upon is leading us. Only then can we elect people to office who care about the consequences of spending and debt and who have the competence to turn the boat around.
