The “fiscal cliff” deal combined with the debt-limit agreement of August 2011 only slightly delays the United States reaching debt-to-gross domestic product levels that would damage the economy and risk another fiscal crisis, according to the a report from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation released on Tuesday.
The agreement “may have prevented the immediate threats that the fiscal cliff posed to our fragile economic recovery, but we haven’t remotely fixed the nation’s debt problem,” said Michael A. Peterson, president and COO of the Peterson Foundation.
“The primary goal of any sustainable fiscal policy is to stabilize the debt as a share of the economy and put it on a downward path, and yet our nation is still heading toward debt levels of 200 percent of GDP and beyond,” he said.
The report concludes that the recent round of deficit-reduction measures won’t make major improvements because it fails to address most of the major contributors to the debt and deficit, including rapidly rising healthcare costs.
HA! That last sentence is a riot. We all know lawmakers, particularly those of the statist persuasion, actually take action quickly to ensure they get whatever's on their wish list (or his) passed! They could give a damn about a sustainable fiscal path.
FYI...in the time it took me to crop out and add that graphic to this post, the million mark has nearly doubled. That's how fast this government spends.
