#National Debt

WASHINGTON -- While lawmakers are working on appropriations bills to fund the government next year, they seem to have lost interest in trying to meet the country’s long-term fiscal challenges. But the newly updated Federal Budget Challenge (www.federalbudgetchallenge.org) gives citizens…

Despite its grim title of “Dead Men Ruling,” Eugene Steuerle’s new book offers an optimistic message about the nation’s future as he calls for greater fiscal responsibility and generational fairness.In a blog post discussing the book, Concord Coalition Executive Director…

Although the federal deficit has dropped significantly since the four-year string of trillion-dollar-plus shortfalls that began in 2009, under current law the deficits will start rising again soon.Sara Imhof, Midwest field director for The Concord Coalition, and Loren Adler, research…

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently projected that federal deficits under President Obama’s budget plan would total $6.6 trillion in the coming decade, a trillion dollars less than under current law.Under the President’s policies, CBO said, deficits this year and…

House Democrats released a proposed 10-year budget Monday that would protect non-defense spending from steep cuts but cause federal deficits to rise for several years in the coming decade.Relative to the Congressional Budget Office baseline, it would reduce deficits by…

In a congressional hearing last week, several budget experts urged lawmakers to address the unsustainable growth in the federal debt through balanced deficit-reduction measures.The experts told the House Financial Services Committee that rising medical costs and the needs of an…

The economic recovery and some steps by elected officials have reduced deficits over the past few years. But they will soon rise again and Washington has done little to deal with the key drivers of long-term budget shortfalls: an aging…

How large is $7.9 trillion? Large enough to fund the federal departments of Defense, Agriculture, Transportation, Education, Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, Labor and Interior for 10 years.It is also how much the government is projected to borrow in that time.…