On Feb. 11, the Congressional Budget Office released its closely watched, 10-year projections for the U.S. budget, this addition covering fiscal years 2026 to 2035. As expected, the numbers were extremely dire, positing deficits and debt that by the decade’s close respectively reach 6.5% and 120% of GDP. The sundry economists and think tanks that evaluated the numbers, and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, called the forecast a stern warning and our current course unsustainable. The trend sounding the loudest alarm: an explosion in interest costs that even today account for almost one-fifth of all U.S. spending.
Then came the war in Iran.
