Please join the Center for American Progress Action Fund as it hosts Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), vice chair of the Senate Democratic Conference and chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Center, who will call for a “reset” of the ongoing budget debate and outline a potential path forward for achieving greater deficit reduction while preserving economic growth.
The United States is facing an extremely troubling long-term outlook if action is not taken in the near to medium term. Left unaddressed, annual deficits are slated to top 4 percent of GDP for the next decade. Large sustained deficits pose risks to financial markets and undermine U.S. standing in the rest of the world. Despite these risks, it is unwise to try to completely balance the budget at the same time we’re fighting our way back from the Great Recession—particularly if we try to address the deficit through spending cuts alone. Economists of all stripes know that investment is the fundamental building block of economic growth. Right now, policymakers are wrestling with how to balance both the need to show the world how we are going to get our fiscal house in order against the danger of reducing the deficit too fast and choking off our nascent economic recovery. The outcome of today’s budget debates will have a powerful impact on the future of the American economy.