America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten

At the start of this fiscal hullabaloo, in 1992, America’s net debt amounted to 46% of GDP. Today it has reached 96% of GDP. For the past five years, under first Donald Trump and then Joe Biden, the federal deficit has averaged 9% of GDP a year. The International Monetary Fund says that America’s borrowing is so vast it is endangering global financial stability. S&P and Fitch, two credit-rating agencies, have already downgraded America’s debt; a third, Moody’s, is threatening to.