Ignorer la navigation
Once More Unto the Breach
Report

Once More Unto the Breach

The Deteriorating Fiscal Outlook


résumé audio créé automatiquement
résumé audio créé automatiquement

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Overview

Recommendation

The US economic recovery, along with declines in health care spending projections, had produced some positive gains in the country’s fiscal outlook. By early 2016, alas, this dynamic turned negative, and now long-term forecasts are increasingly disturbing. Economic and policy professionals Alan J. Auerbach and William G. Gale compellingly articulate the case that the United States faces severe future fiscal instability. getAbstract recommends this eye-opening report to anyone interested in the health and vibrancy of the US economy over the coming decades.

Take-Aways

  • Analysts now predict that the US debt-to-GDP ratio, currently at 75.6%, will rise to 91% in 2025 and to 152% by 2040.
  • The government-run trust funds that cover transportation, disability and Medicare hospital insurance are running low and will require adjustments in 2016, 2022 and 2030, respectively.
  • The US Congressional Budget Office predicts a 2026 budget deficit of 5.9% of GDP – “the highest full-employment deficit, other than during the Great Recession, in the postwar period.”

About the Authors

Alan J. Auerbach is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. William G. Gale holds senior posts at the Brookings Institution.