Summary

Part one of this series examined how the US debt load is projected to go from bad to worse over the next decade. Part two will explore how the fiscal ‘elephant in the room’ of entitlement spending is likely to remain a fixture in Washington given the political hazards of attempting reform.

Impact

Debt Relief: The Ultimate Game of Politics

In the most basic terms, fixing the US debt problem is simple: reduce spending, thus reducing borrowing, and overhaul the federal programs which are fiscally unsustainable over the long term. Easy, right? Not quite. The United States is a democracy, of course, and these moves would be deeply unpopular with large segments of the population. Not only that, and as this article will show, these segments of the population tend to bring a disproportionate weight to bear at the ballot box. Thus the issue of debt relief becomes the ultimate game of politics, one that will make or break an individual politician’s career, much like how many establishment Republicans were marched to oblivion during the Tea Party upswell of primary activism during the Obama years.