The debt limit accord between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy won’t stave off a long-term fiscal crisis, nonpartisan U.S. budget analysts warned Wednesday, adding fuel to fiscal conservatives’ push for deep spending cuts.
The U.S. debt will grow from 98% of the U.S. economy this year to a historic 181% in 2053, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report Wednesday. That’s down only slightly from the 195% the CBO projected in February, months before the leaders’ deal capping agency spending for two years.
“Such high and rising debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook,” the report states. “The likelihood of a fiscal crisis would increase as federal debt continued to rise, because mounting debt could erode investors’ confidence in the U.S. government’s fiscal position.”
