Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population

Obsession over “end times” is nothing new. Most cultures have as part of their belief system some ultimate fate of the human race, with most foreseeing a calamitous end. The beliefs are so widely held that we have a word for such systems: eschatology.

When you add a 5 percent increase in expenses to a 3 percent decrease in revenues to a historic 2

Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum in their book That Used to Be Us describe the Democrats’ and Republicans’ “war on math,” noting that both sides ignore irrefutable financial realities. It is an apt description of the state of our politics today.

percent deficit, you end up with about a 10 percent deficit, which is, of course, where we find ourselves today and is clearly unsustainable. This perspective certainly suggests that if we want to balance the budget by returning to historic norms, we have some work to do on both sides of the ledger. David Walker, former U.S. Comptroller General and

More often than not, the great public policy issues of our time are complex and the solutions not easy. In a world where the public is hungry for easy answers and the 24-hour media all too eager to provide them, I have tried to swim against the tide. I have asked my readers to lay aside preconceived notions and think harder about the issues facing

combination of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a new Medicare prescription benefit, the effects of the recession and the Obama administration’s stimulus spending and tax cuts early in his administration.

The federal deficit for last year (i.e., the amount by which all federal expenditures exceeds revenues) was about $600 billion, or about 6 percent of GDP.

GDP, roughly speaking, is the value of all of the goods and services produced by the U.S. economy—our gross income, if you will. Looking at our debt and deficits as a percentage of GDP also allows us to make more accurate comparisons of our conditions to other countries and to previous periods in history. As of the end of the government’s most