America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten
On the campaign trail, both main candidates largely ignore the problem
It was not so long ago that the hottest topic in American politics was the ballooning national debt. In 1992 Ross Perot had the best showing for a third-party candidate in a presidential election since 1912 on a platform of fiscal probity. Two years later the Republicans seized control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, with the first item in their “Contract with America” being a pledge to balance the budget. Bill Clinton easily won re-election two years after that, in part by negotiating spending cuts with Republicans that led to America’s first surpluses in a generation.
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This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Budgetary blindness”
From the May 4th 2024 edition
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