If you watched the last U.S. Senate debate between Republican incumbent Richard Burr and Democratic challenger Elaine Marshall, you heard Burr mention his 2004 electoral opponent, Erskine Bowles, several times ? often in the context of Bowles? work with a panel designed to address the bloated federal budget deficit.
If that group?s work interests you, peruse Bloomberg Businessweek?s article about efforts designed to rich some sort of compromise recommendations:
By all accounts, the U.S. budget deficit is on an unsustainable path. It was $1.29 trillion, or 8.9 percent of the total economy, in fiscal 2010, which ended on Sept. 30. Debt held by the public, now $9.2 trillion, or 63 percent of gross domestic product, is projected to reach $18.5 trillion, or 78 percent of GDP, by 2020, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Between 1960 and 2000, debt averaged 37 percent of GDP. Interest payments could reach $1 trillion a year within a decade.
Failure to seriously address the debt could undermine would-be lenders’ confidence that the U.S. government can make good on what it owes. That might force the Treasury to borrow at higher rates, triggering a downturn that would bring greater unemployment, stagnant wages, and ever more debt.
