I'm John Batchel. I welcome my colleague, Veronique de Reggie of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The debt. One trillion dollars per year. The debt.

Veronique, you write most recently a creator syndicate that the debt, one trillion dollars a year,

is a two-party problem. What does that mean? Please explain. Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. Well, when you look at the CBO budget, it is painting the picture of a country

that is on a very unsustainable path. In fact, you know, the CBO report that just came out,

like used this word,

like previous reports, but this time it was really kind of actually kind of, I think,

kind of highlighting it. If it could have written it in all caps, I believe it would have.

And you don't get to this point in a year or two. What does end up happening is like over the last

decades, right, we have known basically

that politicians on the right and on the left have promised more more benefits to seniors

than we even had the money to begin paying for it.

And for years, neither sides has actually agreed to or decided to do anything about it.

And they've accumulated.

So on the Democrat side, for instance, have increased benefits for Social Security and

extended eligibility for Medicaid and we've had Obamacare.

But on the Republican side, very recently, right, we've had Obamacare. But on the on the Republican side, very recently,

right, we've had, we have a tax credit for seniors and and we've had, which definitely

makes the solvency of social security much more difficult. And we've had, we've had all other things. So it's,

it's a both sides. It's really a both sides problem. So the debt, which is driven by programs like

social security, Medicare and Medicaid, and indirectly interest payment on the debt is really a both

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