On the recordJanuary 28, 2016
Mr. President, Washington received a loud wake-up call this week. On Monday, the Congressional Budget Office, or the CBO, released its biannual ``Budget and Economic Outlook'' report and the projections for the next decade are very sobering. The nonpartisan study found that over the next decade our country will grow to nearly $30 trillion in debt. Folks, that is $30 trillion. This is unbelievable. It is unmanageable. A number this large is nearly impossible to comprehend. Maybe that is why this seems to have gone unnoticed, buried under headlines about Presidential politics, Super Bowl 50, Snowzilla, and Apple's latest earnings statement. But what we can comprehend is who is responsible for paying off this debt eventually. We are--the American people. With nearly $19 trillion in debt today and over $100 trillion in future unfunded liabilities, we are well past the tipping point. This means each American family is responsible today for nearly $1 million of this debt. In addition, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are expected to go to zero in roughly 15 short years. According to an AEI analysis of this CBO report, spending on Social Security, Medicare, and other health care programs will grow at an average annual rate of 5\1/2\ percent from 2016 to 2026, pushing spending on Social Security and health care alone to upwards of $4.1 trillion in 2026--just 10 short years from now. This is more than we spent last year on the entire Federal Government.…





