{"id":2078,"date":"2009-11-13T16:46:22","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T21:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=2078"},"modified":"2009-11-13T17:26:36","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T22:26:36","slug":"cbo-chief-u-s-is-broke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/2078\/cbo-chief-u-s-is-broke\/","title":{"rendered":"CBO Chief: U.S. is Broke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not yet.\u00a0 But this week Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf <a href=\"http:\/\/cboblog.cbo.gov\/?p=423\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">issued a sobering report<\/span><\/a> on the state of the nation\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n<p>The largest problem by far?\u00a0 Entitlements \u2026 those \u201cpopular\u201d little nuggets of government largesse that everyone enjoys receiving but no one (maybe some liberals) enjoys paying for out of their paycheck.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/ftpdocs\/107xx\/doc10707\/11-06-09-CBO_Presenation-AgingAndHealth-TheChallengesOfEntitlementGrowth.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">For example<\/span><\/a>, Medicare and Medicaid are projected to grow by 80% over the next 25 years, while Social Security will <em>only<\/em> grow 20%.<\/p>\n<p>As Elmendorf notes, the nation simply can\u2019t continue to run up the national debt, currently at almost $12 trillion.\u00a0 He alludes to possible crises down the road: a drastic drop in the dollar, an increase in interest rates and massive tax hikes.<\/p>\n<p>His conclusion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[F]iscal policy is on an unsustainable path to an extent that cannot be solved by minor tinkering. The country faces a fundamental disconnect between the services the people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues that people are willing to send to the government to finance those services. That fundamental disconnect will have to be addressed in some way if the budget is to be placed on a sustainable course.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, not yet.\u00a0 But this week Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf issued a sobering report on the state of the nation\u2019s finances. The largest problem by far?\u00a0 Entitlements \u2026 those \u201cpopular\u201d little nuggets of government largesse that everyone enjoys receiving but no one (maybe some liberals) enjoys paying for out of their paycheck.\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,293,95,232,235,461],"class_list":["post-2078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-congressional-budget-office","tag-doug-elmendorf","tag-entitlements","tag-medicaid","tag-medicare","tag-social-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2078"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2087,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078\/revisions\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}