Anxieties over America’s ballooning debt have reached fever pitch, but economists question whether Washington can muster the political will needed to avert a reckoning, and worry that the proposed remedies could carry their own set of fiscal ailments.
America’s national debt—now $39 trillion—has long alarmed fiscally hawkish lawmakers. Congressional Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) recently labeled the country’s borrowing practices “unsustainable,” calling the failure to address them an “immoral” burden placed on future generations.
Those concerns have been echoed by influential voices in finance. Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio has warned of an imminent “debt‑induced heart attack,” while JPMorgan…