Are you ready for a $30-trillion national debt?
The Congressional Budget Office is warning that unless measures are taken to get the federal budget under control, the national debt will soar to $30 trillion by 2026.
That catastrophic number is the result of the budget deal agreed to by Obama and the GOP late last year. The combination of steep spending increases along with tax cuts will grow the federal deficit back to a trillion dollars a year by 2022 – and that's if there's no recession between now and then.
Another culprit: Obamacare.
Analysts said Obamacare will chase more workers out of the labor force over the next five years, adding pressure to an economy still struggling to spring to life more than seven years into the Obama recovery.
The Affordable Care Act itself is still struggling to attract a customer base, the CBO said, lowering its estimate for the number of people who will sign up for the exchanges from 21 million to 13 million — a drop of nearly 40 percent in projections. Customers collecting taxpayer subsidies this year will be 11 million, down from the 15 million the CBO projected a year ago.
The grim news comes with less than a year left for President Obama to put the law on firmer footing as he seeks to head off what is likely to be a last effort at repealing the act after November’s elections.
The economic front is somewhat brighter for Mr. Obama, who seven years into the recovery will finally see significant sustained growth of 2.5 percent this year and 2.6 percent next year, the CBO said.
That will be followed by a cooling off, with growth dropping below 2 percent in 2019 and 2020. The economic gains will continue to go disproportionately to the wealthy, helping boost income tax revenue but limiting payroll taxes, which will put even more pressure on the entitlement programs that are driving up deficits.
The biggest fiscal dent, however, was made late last year when Mr. Obama and the Republican-run Congress struck a deal. The president won significant spending hikes, and Republicans insisted on a new round of special tax breaks that, combined, reversed years of progress and added nearly $750 billion to projected deficits over the next decade.
Congressional leaders and the president have refused to address the debt, largely because the American people don't really care. The issue is far down the list of pressing concerns the public thinks we need to address. This guarantees that politicians will continue to spend money like a drunk sailor for the foreseeable future.
But eventually, reality will intrude, and we'll be confronted with a civilization-destroying calamity. Some believe that it will happen sooner rather than later, as conditions in 2016 threaten to ripen into a full-blown worldwide meltdown far worse than the one that occurred in 2008.
Ad Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- That Strange, Persistent, Cheering at a CEO's Murder is Proof We Are Now an Idiocracy
- North Korea is China's Proxy
- Scientific Societies Err on 'Climate Change'
- A 2025 Year of Jubilee Could End Slavery in America
- The Laken Riley Act Must Become Law
- Depopulation: A Space Odyssey
- Trump’s Incredibly High Stakes
- It’s Not Too Late to Boot Biden
- The Sinking of the USS Agility
- Culture and the Perils of Ideology
Blog Posts
- Firestorm of incompetence in Los Angeles: Water company admits their big reservoir to fight fires was bone dry
- California wildfires: Now for the arsonists and looters ... UPDATED
- Why was John Lennon’s atheist anthem ‘Imagine’ sung at Jimmy Carter’s funeral — at the late president’s request?
- Disappointment from the Supreme Court
- Scenes from a funeral
- Americans, be careful for whom you vote; your lives may depend on it
- Fact checkers upset fact checkers checked
- The farce of multiculturalism
- Fani Willis and the high cost of transparency theater
- More abortion means killing parental rights
- Socialism update: No lights in Cuba, no water in L.A.
- Let's update world maps to reflect American greatness
- Four years of Biden proves too close a shave
- Gavin Newsom actually does something right for once
- The reality of Stand Your Ground