If you want to get a politician to change the subject, ask them how they're going to deal with the federal debt, which is growing to be bigger than the U.S. gross domestic product and has us on a path to fiscal disaster. Economists across the political spectrum agree that large, persistent, and growing annual deficits and the national debt depress long-term economic growth, the one known way to increase living standards.
When Reason asked GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy what he would do to cut spending, he said he'd focus instead on supercharging the economy so that we can grow our way out of it. Unlike Joe Biden and Donald Trump—who have both sworn that they won't touch a penny of Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of debt—the millennial and self-described limited-government conservative at least acknowledges that debt is a problem. He just won't commit to any spending cuts to deal with it.
