The United States is not the first advanced modern economy to face a serious federal budget challenge. A number of countries have seen their debt rise to unacceptable levels in recent decades, and they have taken steps to rein it in. We explore the approaches that Canada and the United Kingdom...

An examination of two different government forecasts of the five-year federal budget outlook, both of which show persistent large deficits, and a recommendation for additional policy actions in order to achieve annual deficit targets.

An argument that curtailing deductions for personal interest expense would be a more effective strategy for increasing national saving.

In the years prior to our recent economic crisis, foreign savings poured into the United States. Did foreign traders who happened to acquire dollars from American trade deficits merely choose to keep these funds in dollar-denominated assets? Or, did foreigners decide to increase their savings...

An argument that lowering COLAs for Social Security benefits and adjusting the Consumer Price Index to better reflect the cost-of-living increases that result from inflation will alleviate two long-range problems: escalating federal budget deficits and exceedingly low national saving.

An argument that despite complaints about the persistent U.S.-Japanese trade imbalance, enacting policies to restrict Japan's access to our markets will have few lasting effects on either country's overall trade balance, and that trade imbalances are instead appropriate reflections of domestic...

Americans are saving less than they used to. At the same time, they are spending more years in retirement, and Social Security still has long-term financial shortfalls. The author finds that most American households must raise their saving rates considerably if they are to maintain their current...

An examination of the decline in the net national saving rate since the early 1980s, which identifies an ongoing, fiscally induced wealth redistribution toward older generations and a sizable gain in annuitized forms of saving as underlying reasons.

A look at how four trends in the U.S. economy -- high taxes, low savings rates, an aging population, and astronomically high health care costs -- could constrain Americans' living standards over the next few decades.