Defense Spending and Deficit Reductions: Funding the Future

It is common wisdom that the federal budget defi cit is the biggest challenge facing the U.S. government today, but the debate rages over how to reduce that defi cit and bring under control the growing debt burden. Two powerful commissions provided their views late last year, with both the Simpson-Bowles Commission and the Rivlin-Domenici Commission proposing ways to reduce the overall debt to 60 percent of GDP. While neither commission’s approach will be adopted, they do show that such an outcome is possible, and they are shaping the consideration of options.