U.S. debt expected to double over 30 years

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that persistent budget deficits will cause the federal debt to double in size over the next 30 years.

Following the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic, the government has depended heavily on borrowing and low interest rates to help an ailing economy. But as the economy is expected to heal, the CBO has forecasted that interest rates will rise and spending on programs such as Social Security and Medicare will increase.

The estimates do not include President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which would further add to the deficit in hopes of speeding faster growth.

Almost all Western democracies have higher voter turnout than the United States. In Australia, 18-year-olds automatically are registered to vote upon high school graduation. Citizens are fined for not voting in a national election. In the state of Oregon, all registered voters have received a mail-in ballot since the late 1990s.

The U.S House of Representatives has passed a bill to simplify our patchwork of state-by-state election laws, reduce partisan gerrymandering and reduce “dark money” in campaigns. Not one Republican in the House voted for this bill. Some said that it was an attack on states’ rights. These are the same states’ rights that allowed election officials of the past to administer “literacy” tests that the officials themselves could not pass.

Why take part in the official business of democracy if one does not believe in citizen participation to the fullest extent of the law? Why call oneself a “representative” when the voters of a funky-shaped district are chosen by a party rather than the other way around? Why fight for fair elections or even state-run elections when “dark money” is the real master of the results?

Republicans in the House proved once again that they are uninterested in representative democracy. The reforms of H.R. 1 are long overdue.

Jan Goldberg, Riverside