The deficits are seriously high. This is a problem. But its not the big problem. As high as the current deficits are, as high as the total federal debt is, we can deal with it if we act rationally from here.
That acting rationally is the hard part though considering current legal and political realities. Which leads us to the big problem, the rapid coming increase in entitlement spending. This is largely because of the baby boomers retiring, but it is not just because of that factor. Even ignoring the large demographic bulge of the baby boom, we are living longer (and the retirement age isn't keeping up with that fact), and we are having fewer kids (which helps in that kids need to be supported by working adults as well, but fewer kids means fewer working adults in the future). Immigration can make up for fewer kids, but the immigrants (at least if you include the many illegal immigrants) on the average produce less. Also mass immigration creates some problems of its own. Not IMO nearly as severe as some people think, but still some problems. I'm not for heavy restrictions on legal immigration (I think there should be less restriction), or trying to kick out millions of illegal immigrants (I just don't see it as being practical and beneficial), but immigration isn't going to be enough to keep the ratio of workers to retirees from shrinking noticeably. |
