As former Illinois Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen is credited with saying, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Roughly 50 years later, the federal government's spending binge has added some zeroes to its debts, and we now talk about liabilities in the trillions of dollars. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office's latest budget and economic outlook does not inspire much confidence that the government will ever get a handle on its debts.
The CBO projects a budget deficit of $426 billion this fiscal year--$60 billion less than it estimated in March. The CBO's budget outlook predicts annual budget deficits to remain a little under half a trillion dollars through 2018, then grow to $1 trillion by 2025.
In all, the CBO projects that the nation will add $7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
The national debt officially stands at about $18.3 trillion, yet this ignores many unfunded liabilities.
Though self-serving politicians, ever eager to spend the public's money, like to act as if debt does not matter, it has real consequences. Just ask Greece.
Editorial on 09/01/2015