The answer is serious moves to cut federal deficits in the long term, say budget experts in both major parties. Entitlement and tax-system reforms are expected to be centerpieces of any solution, but progress could come in small steps as well as big ones. With or without help from the debt-ceiling debate, the question is whether the needed political statesmanship will arrive before a debt crisis – a spike in interest rates or a credit-rating downgrade – forces the issue.
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Brendan McDermid/Reuters/File
A man dressed as a panhandling Uncle Sam stood in New York’s Times Square in 2009, one of a dozen who did so to protest the scope of US national debt.