Ron Haskins, Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Co-Director – Center on Children and Families

The nation’s deficit path is unsustainable. The public debt is likely to increase by $1 trillion per year until 2020 and then increase at an ever increasing rate after that. Far from helping the nation address its exploding deficit, the last two administrations, and every congress since 2000 have taken actions that have intensified the problem. It is time for Americans to face the high probability that due most fundamentally to their continuing demand for high spending and low taxes, sometime in the next decade or so one or more catastrophes will strike America. This presentation outlines the deficit problem, examines the possible consequences of failing to stem the red ink, and explores why the nation’s government seems incapable of taking serious action.