Trillions Of Troubles Ahead

A crushing burden of debt threatens to sap America’s growth for years to come.

If the government stays on the course it’s been on for the past forty years without a radical change, the federal government will soon have a $10 trillion budget.

In other words, the federal budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion. Just to make the size more visible, that’s $1,400 billion.

Our colleague Rob Arnott, who always does terrific research, wrote in his recent report that “at all levels, federal, state, local and GSEs, the total public debt is now at 141% of GDP.

That puts the United States in some elite company—only Japan, Lebanon and Zimbabwe are higher. That’s only the start. Add household debt (highest in the world at 99% of GDP) and corporate debt (highest in the world at 317% of GDP, not even counting off-balance-sheet swaps and derivatives) and our total debt is 557% of GDP.

Less than three years ago our total indebtedness crossed 500% of GDP for the first time.”