The U.S. federal government budget has run a deficit–it has spent more than it collected in revenues–every year but five over the past five decades. Under a deficit, the federal government needs to borrow in order to pay for government programs. The national debt is the accumulation of this borrowing, together with the associated interest owed to investors; it stood at over $36 trillion as of January 2025.
November 18, 2019
Michael Klein (EconoFact) and Dan Sichel (Wellesley) highlight that public investments are often worthwhile. Knowing how they are to be paid for is also important.
June 20, 2019
Decisions on government spending and taxation have a direct impact on the economy. Yet fiscal policy is inherently political.
June 7, 2019
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has attracted attention, especially among many who see in it a support for greater government spending.
April 28, 2019
William G. Gale (Brookings Institution) and Michael Klein (EconoFact) discuss the distributional effects of fiscal policy and the progressivity of the US tax system.
February 13, 2019
Over the next decade, the U.S. is on course for routine trillion-dollar annual deficits in the federal budget and the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in its history.
December 19, 2018
The extent of public pension underfunding varies across the U.S. Some proposed solutions, such as the use of pension obligation bonds, have considerable downsides.
December 12, 2018
U.S. fiscal and monetary conditions are different today than they were before the Financial Crisis. How does this affect our ability to address an economic downturn?
July 26, 2017
Current immigrant flows are not estimated to cost taxpayers money over the long-run. But, state and local governments might see increased expenditures.
July 25, 2017
Welfare programs are a small part of the federal budget. Disability Insurance might be a better target to reduce government spending and increase employment.