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The Federal Deficit and Debt: A Painful Problem to Solve
Today, I want to discuss a topic that has somewhat fallen off the radar: the federal deficit and debt burden. It has been off the radar screen for a decade, since the last debt panic. The reason for that is that the panic led to real reforms that largely solved the problem. That episode—the fiscal cliff and the sequester—has a lot to tell us about today’s situation. Let's take a closer look. The Big Picture My take has historically been that, yes, the deficit and debt were real problems, but they were solvable. In fact, until recently, they were solvable without too much pain, as we saw in 2012 and 2013. Yes, ... (full story)