US Debt Forecast: Grim Future Looms as Deficits Rise

US Debt Forecast: The Frog in Hot Water

The US economy may be cooling down, but the country is like a frog in hot water. This analogy perfectly captures how incremental changes can accumulate to dangerous or even fatal levels if ignored. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its Budget and Economic Outlook, revealing that deficits will gradually rise from 5.6 percent to 6.1 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next 10 years under current law. To put this in context, the average deficit over the past 50 years has been 3.7 percent of GDP.