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CBO study warns against long-term debt

A new government study says that federal health care and retirement programs threaten to overwhelm the federal budget and harm the economy in coming decades unless Washington finds the political will to restrain their inexorable growth.

By Andrew Taylor | Updated on September 17, 2013
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new government study says that federal health care and retirement programs threaten to overwhelm the federal budget and harm the economy in coming decades unless Washington finds the political will to restrain their inexorable growth. The long-term pressures promise to quickly reverse recent improvements in the deficit.

Tuesday’s Congressional Budget Office report says that government spending on health care and Social Security would double relative to the size of the economy in 25 years and that spending on other programs like defense, transportation and education would decline to its smallest level by the same measure since the Great Depression.

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