Wednesday, May 18, 2011

David Stockman on Debt: "We've Run Out of Runway"

Regarding deficits created during the Reagan presidency:
"The essential distinction is that we had a clean balance sheet then - $1 trillion of national debt. Today we have $14 trillion in national debt.  We have used up all the runway, so to speak."

"We have piled our national balance sheet with so much debt that the government is at the very edge of a huge solvency crisis that isn't going to be addressed unless both parties dramatically change their position, and I see no sign of it.  So we're going to have a gong show. Year after year after year of these debt ceiling crises, maybe they will be solved for a month or two, and then we will go right to the next."