It’s a new year, a new Congress and a newly chastened president. What can we expect in the year ahead for the most important issue of our time: bringing federal deficits and the national debt under control?
I have been dour and pessimistic about the prospects for balancing the budget for several years now. Yet, for the first time, despite the tax-and-budget deal struck in the dying days of the Pelosi-Reid Congress, I see tantalizing glimmers of hope. As I have argued repeatedly, Americans have a window of opportunity of four or five years before we enter the “event horizon” of the black hole we call the national debt. At that point, when interest payments on the debt mount faster than we can possibly hope to cut the budget, there is no return. But maybe, just maybe, we can avoid that fate.
