CONCLUSION
No government, business, or household can operate well or set a comprehensive agenda when it pre commits more than all expected revenue growth and borrows more than its ability to pay. Dealing with this problem will require reducing future spending commitments, further increasing revenue, or some combination of the two.
If the next president tolerates the long-term consequences of significantly rising debt and accepts all commitments ordained from the past, he or she will be left with almost no ability to do anything new, much less respond to an unexpected economic, environmental, or defensechallenge. Other policy goals (e.g., universal prekindergarten, leaner government, or lower taxes) will be much harder to realize if there is no room in the budget left for them.
The excesses of the past have put the next president in danger of being a lame duck almost from the start of the next administration. Without significant reforms to the nation’s spending and tax policies, the next president’s agenda will depart little from the path we have increasingly followed over recent decades. This path is dominated by growing health and retirement spending, increasing interest costs, an unsustainably rising national debt, and little room to invest in basic government services or tomorrow’s priorities. Such a path threatens the nation’s future prosperity.