CBO Chief: Nation's Debt Is "Unsustainable"

Doug Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, stated today that the fiscal path of the U.S. is unsustainable and requires major intervention.

Elmendorf pointed to an estimate that found that the national debt would swell from 53% of GDP to 90% of GDP by 2020 if Pres. Obama's 2011 budget is enacted as is.

Increasing taxes, cutting spending, or a combination of the two are the only options on the table - and even then, major initiatives would need to be enacted. For example, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker suggested that Congress consider a value-added tax.

I personally think we should start by reducing our footprint overseas and let Bush's tax cuts expire. You can't get by with simply cutting taxes, nor can you trim fat from a few areas of the budget without serious reform. Defense and entitlement programs eat up a lot of budget, and there is a lot of room for improvement in both. It may very well require an increase in taxes, but that pain is much smaller than the alternative - financial catastrophe down the road.