The Debt

Why the Deficit Outlook Could Be Even Worse Than It Seems

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Congressional Budget Office warned earlier this month that the U.S. will start running $1 trillion deficits in 2020, and that the national debt will be nearly as large as the economy in a decade...
Here's Why You Shouldn't Panic as 10-Year Treasury Yield Tops 3%

By Yuval Rosenberg

Yields on 10-year Treasuries hit the widely watched and psychologically significant 3 percent level Tuesday for the first time since January 2014, continuing a months-long climb that has been driven...
Deficit Owls Say You Shouldn’t Give a Hoot About $1 Trillion Budget Shortfall

By Yuval Rosenberg

As warnings rise about the Congressional Budget Office’s projection that the federal budget deficit is on pace to top $1 trillion in 2020, The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein on Friday highlighted a...
How Congress Cheats with Our Money — and How We Can Stop It

By Marc Goldwein and Zach Moller

The U.S. is on course to top its record debt levels set after World War II, and permanent trillion-dollar deficits — meaning, forever — are likely to return within two years . And unlike after World...
April Is Financial Literacy Month. Someone Tell Congress.

By Joseph J. Minarik and Caroline L. Ferguson

February is Black History Month, March is National Women’s Month, and April? Well, it’s Financial Literacy Month, of course! The U.S. government gave financial literacy its own month in 2003. April...

Why All the Warnings About Unsustainable National Debt Could Be Wrong

By Michael Rainey

International economists are warning about rising global debt levels and deficit hawks in Washington are increasingly worried about what they see as unsustainable debt levels in the U.S., but a new...
The US Has an Exceptional Debt Outlook – and Not in a Good Way

By Michael Rainey

The International Money Fund’s latest global fiscal survey warns that in five years, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will be higher than Italy’s, a nation not generally known for its exemplary fiscal...
When the Budget Won’t Balance, Just Get Rid of the Budget Committee?

By Michael Rainey

It may sound like a joke — Erik Sherman of Forbes said it seemed like something “from The Onion or Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker, only with less humor and pith” — but Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), chair...
With Recent Laws, Congress Has Added $540 Billion to the 2019 Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

Spending hikes and tax cuts passed since 2015 under the Trump and Obama administrations account for $540 billion of next year’s projected $981 billion budget deficit, or 55 percent, according to...
Extending the Individual Tax Cuts Would Reduce Economic Growth: Penn Wharton Budget Model

By Michael Rainey

Most of the individual tax cuts in the GOP tax overhaul that became law in December are scheduled to expire after 2025, but Republican lawmakers are expected to try to make them permanent well before...

New Budget Projections Show a Rising Tide of Red Ink Ahead

By Michael Rainey

The Congressional Budget Office won’t release new budget projections that include the effects of the President Trump’s tax overhaul until April, but on Friday the deficit hawks at the Committee for a...
Why the GOP Tax Cuts Could Cost Even More Than Expected

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Republican tax overhaul will decrease government revenue and increase the deficit by nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years before accounting for any offsetting growth effects, according to estimates...
Are We Turning the Dials the Wrong Way?

By Yuval Rosenberg

“Federal fiscal policy is entering uncharted territory,” Goldman Sachs economists Alec Phillips and Blake Taylor warned Sunday in a research note. Their title: “What’s Wrong with Fiscal Policy?” You...
Debt Could Soar Much Higher Than White House Claims, Budget Group Warns

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicted Thursday that an independent analysis of the president’s budget “will show much higher deficits and debt as a percent of Gross Domestic...
Can Mick Mulvaney Still Call Himself a Deficit Hawk?

By Yuval Rosenberg

Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, may have just put out a budget proposal that never reaches balance and that projects more than $7 trillion in deficits over...