EP 633 The Federal Debt: A Problem With No Easy Answers

Some Congressional leaders say that all we have to do to get control of our raging national debt is to cut out waste, fraud and abuse. Scour the voluminous federal budget and you will not find line items with those designations. Were it so easy. Mind you we’re over $31 trillion in the hole now and add a trillion or more to it each year(except much more during, say, a pandemic). The hard truth is that much of the federal budget is on autopilot–like Social Security and Medicare–and few in Congress have the desire to even begin to give a hard look at these programs and determine if structural changes need to be made. This is occurring as the ticking clock tells us there’s trouble ahead when  current benefits to seniors in these programs will not be met by projected revenues within a decade.  There are revenue increases, benefit cuts or changes in eligibility standards available, but is there political will to manage this problem?  The looming debt ceiling debate has brought the issue to the fore but President Biden is demanding that the default on US debt obligations not be a condition of any negotiation on the long term debt problem.  Robert Bixby, executive director of The Concord Coalition(concordcoalition.org), a non- partisan organization that encourages fiscal responsibility in Washington, joins us to discuss.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download