This Chart on Fed Debt Projections Will Make You Cry Like Edmund Muskie in a Parking Lot
This chart comes from Reason columnist and Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, writing in The American. Here's the snapshot:
Trillions of dollars in projected federal budget deficits over the next decade threaten long-term economic stability and complicate the president's spending plans.
The chart [above] illustrates this point. Based on Congressional Budget Office data, it represents the interest the government paid on the federal debt as a percentage of GDP between 1962 and today and the projected debt service payments up until 2082. The projections are illustrated under the current CBO baseline and under the CBO alternative, more realistic, scenario. For comparison, the graph also shows CBO's projections for the cost of Medicare and Social Security as a percentage of GDP. Notice that under either of CBO's scenarios, the net interest payments, or the costs of the debt, rival the cost of two of our nation's most expensive social programs.
Without even getting in the "alternative, more realistic, scenario," look upon our future and despair. Start clipping coupons now!