Chambersburg Public Opinion
U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said he hopes the long-term budget outlook report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office will serve as a wake-up call to the Obama administration.
According to the CBO:
— The national debt will continue to explode under the status quo. Without major changes, debt held by the public will rise from 73 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2012 to 93 percent within 10 years, approaching Europe’s disastrous levels. In 25 years the national debt will reach 200 percent of GDP.
— Absent major entitlement reform, the country’s entitlement programs will continue their unsustainable growth. Spending on mandatory health care programs will nearly double in 25 years and the Medicare trust fund will be exhausted by the early to mid-2020s. By 2022, spending on Social Security, health care programs and interest will consume nearly 90 percent of expected revenue.
“The country’s gloomy fiscal forecast is a failure of leadership on the part of the president and the Democratic majority in the Senate,” Toomey said. “I introduced a budget this year and last year because our country desperately needs a fiscal blueprint that will balance our budget, reform our entitlement programs and restore economic prosperity. Unfortunately, the president has refused to engage in a serious discussion about our fiscal future and the looming crisis, and Senate Democrats have refused to propose a budget of any kind, let alone one
Read more: http://www.publicopiniononline.com/localnews/ci_20795564/sen-toomey-country-needs-fiscal-plan-avoid-gloom