FISCAL BLOG

Student debt is one of the biggest challenges young people will face as they prepare to enter adulthood, and is often their first encounter with debt.

The depletion dates for Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund have been relatively well known for the past 20 years and are now rapidly approaching.

The Social Security Trustees note that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund is now expected to become depleted in 2034, compared to 2033 in last year’s report.

The Social Security and Medicare Trustees released their annual reports, which show that these vital programs are on an unsustainable path.

Skyrocketing student debt has generated significant discussion about ways to improve the financing of higher education in the United States.

U.S. defense spending increased substantially from 2020 to 2021 relative to other countries.

Driven by rising interest rates and the accumulation of federal debt, interest will nearly triple in the next 10 years and reach a historic high relative to the size of the economy by 2032.

While this year’s deficit looks much better primarily due to the expiration of pandemic relief programs, CBO projects that the deficit will soon begin to climb again.

The likelihood of a return to higher interest rates is “both reasonably likely at some point and potentially calamitous for the federal government and broader economy.”

Federal spending for international affairs, which supports American diplomacy and development aid, is a small portion of the U.S. budget.