Debates over reining in the federal debt are so 2011. President Obama barely mentioned the issue in his State of the Union address, and Republicans have downplayed it as well, searching for a more optimistic message than one of impending fiscal doom. In her cheerful response to Obama, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., didn’t use the word “debt” or “deficit” even once. Though the federal debt issue has largely been forgotten in D.C., a Tuesday report from the Congressional Budget Office reminds us that it’s far from gone.

It’s true that deficits will be down over the next two years from the historically high levels during the recent economic downturn. But they’ll start to steadily rise again in 2016. Over the next decade, they’ll total $7.9 trillion.