Congressional Budget Office warns of debt explosion

[The Northerner]

The national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021 — and balloon to 200 percent of GDP within 25 years — without dramatic cuts to federal health and retirement programs or steep tax increases, congressional budget analysts said on Wednesday.

The dire outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office comes as the White House and congressional leaders are locked in negotiations aimed at cutting spending and stabilizing future borrowing. The CBO report highlights the enormity of that task and the immense difficulty of paying off the debt, given an aging population and soaring health care costs.

Over the long term, the CBO said, a projected explosion in government spending outside interest on the debt is “attributable entirely” to the ballooning cost of “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and (to a lesser extent) insurance subsidies” intended to help finance coverage for the uninsured under President Obama’s new health care law.

“The health care programs are the main drivers of that growth,” the CBO said, responsible for 80 percent of the projected rise in spending on those programs over the next 25 years.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/congressional-budget-office-warns-of-debt-explosion/2011/06/22/AGNwb2fH_story.html

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Without a single payer health care system we're one of the few countries to face this.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Amazing that an article on the budget doesn't even mention military spending.

[SoCalDem]

3. Have these people been living under a rock for 30 years?

:grr:

Regular/ordinary people, in addition to many world renowned economists, have been saying this for a very long time...

[JDPriestly]

5. If the weathy paid FICA and other taxes on every cent they earn just like the poor

then we would not have a problem. Our budget deficit would be a thing of the past. There are too many loopholes for the wealthy. That is especially true for corporations.

[Peacetrain]

4. The Prescription Drug Act is out of the budget with no money to provide for it.

It was set up that way in an attempt to get Medicare, and Medicaid defunded by letting that go hog wild

One does not have anything to do with the other.. since the other programs are funded.

Lift the caps and renegotaite the drug benefit and pay for it.

It is not rocket science