A new study shows how stabilizing U.S. public debt requires big tax increases or spending cuts. Are lawmakers capable of such heavy lifting

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I don’t actually mind that the United States political system is trying to unravel which influential people got most caught up in Jeffrey Epstein’s oily web. The character of the people who govern should always be of interest to the people governed, even if the wholesale release of raw government files now favoured by President Donald Trump means trial by hearsay, innuendo, gossip, rumour and name-dropping — i.e., the staples of 21st-century culture.

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But once all the releases have been fully sifted, there are other problems Congress might turn its attention to, including a serious one of its own creation, the soaring national debt, which now has such momentum it’s threatening to leave Earth orbit. This is all spelled out in sobering detail in a new research report by Alan J. Auerbach and William Gale: “Then and now: A look back and ahead at the federal budget,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). (Actually, I can’t imagine anyone not already sober reading........

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