The Deficit of Honesty

Pittsburgh. Once the steel spine of America, now a living museum of what happens when you bet the house on yesterday and pretend it’s still today. The factories are quiet, the rivers are cleaner, the startup buzz is louder, and the Primanti Bros. sandwiches are still held together by the grace of God and two French fries. It’s a city that knows how to work, how to rebuild, and—unlike Congress—how to balance grit with a little thing called reality.

So let’s talk about that—reality. Specifically, the reality that the United States is hurtling toward a fiscal cliff with all the deliberate caution of a blindfolded buffalo on roller skates. The national debt has ballooned to 120% of GDP, and if projections hold, it’s headed for a hearty 166% by 2054. That’s not just a big number. That’s an economic aneurysm waiting to happen. And the truly bipartisan response to it? A thunderous, majestic… shrug.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, bipartisanship is alive and well. It’s just been repurposed from noble compromise to mutual negligence. Republicans and Democrats have finally found common ground: no one wants to deal with the national debt. It’s too hard, too unpopular, and—let’s be honest—too inconvenient for the donors, the lobbyists, and, well, the voters.

Let’s break this down like we’re explaining it to someone in a Braddock diner who just wants to know if their Social Security check will keep coming and why eggs cost six bucks.

The Math No One Wants to Do

You can’t fix a $6.75 trillion annual spending habit by shaving a few bucks off the top. Medicare and Social Security alone account for $2.3 trillion—roughly a third of all federal spending. That’s right, the programs most Americans rely on, and the ones politicians of both parties have sworn to leave untouched, are the ones eating up the federal ledger like termites at a lumberyard.

The GOP’s answer? Enter: DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency. (Yes, really. And yes, Elon Musk is in charge, because if you’re going to do satire, you might as well go full Vonnegut.) Musk promised to trim $2 trillion from the federal budget—a bold goal that was retracted faster than a Tesla stock bump after a “pedo guy” tweet. Why? Because reality bites, and it bites hardest when you try to cut things people actually use.

You see, Republicans talk a big game about cutting spending—but not those programs. No, they go after the budget’s lint: foreign aid (less than 1% of spending) and the federal workforce (about as politically easy to scapegoat as potholes). It’s the fiscal equivalent of trying to lose 50 pounds by skipping one French fry a day.

Meanwhile, on taxes, the GOP is still doing jazz hands about extending the Trump tax cuts and throwing in a few new ones for good measure. Price tag? Up to $11 trillion over a decade. How will we pay for it? Spoiler: We won’t. We’ll just pretend growth will magically appear like a sugar high after an energy drink—only to crash hard and fast when reality, again, shows up.

And tariffs? Tariffs are the economic version of punching yourself in the face and demanding your neighbor apologize. Trump wants to go “all-tariff”—bringing us back to the 1890s, when America was younger, dumber, and had no Social Security to fund. Tariffs back then covered about 3% of GDP. Today, entitlements alone gobble up 9%. You’d need a tariff on everything—including your grandma’s apple pie—to even scratch the surface.

Meanwhile, Across the Aisle…

Don’t get too comfortable, Democrats. This ain’t a partisan roast. Because while Republicans are handing out tax cuts like candy in a parade, Democrats are channeling their inner Oprah—you get a social program, and you get a social program—with no plan to raise taxes beyond the tip-top earners. It’s fantasy math wrapped in empathy, tied with a bow of magical thinking.

The cold truth is this: You cannot maintain or expand a European-style welfare state without adopting a European-style tax structure. Which means—brace yourself—everybody pays more. Not just the billionaires. Not just the hedge fund guys. You, me, the person reading this in a coffee shop near East Liberty, and yes, even the guy still yelling about gold standards in the Strip District.

So why won’t anyone say that out loud?

Because voters don’t want to hear it. Fiscal honesty is political suicide. It’s much easier to promise tax cuts and free stuff than to explain compound interest and demographic time bombs to a public whose eyes glaze over at the phrase “primary deficit.”

This isn’t just a political problem. It’s a civic one. We’re all complicit. Politicians aren’t magicians; they’re mirrors. And they’re reflecting back exactly what the electorate demands: benefits now, costs later. Kick the can down the road until we run out of road—and then act surprised when we find a cliff.

Reality Check from the Rust Belt

Standing in Pittsburgh—a city that literally collapsed under the weight of ignoring change—you can’t help but feel a little déjà vu. Once upon a time, we ignored the writing on the wall about globalization, automation, and a changing economy. The mills closed. The jobs vanished. And we were left holding an empty lunch pail and asking, What happened?

That’s what’s coming on a national scale if we keep pretending that arithmetic is optional. Debt doesn’t care about ideology. Interest payments aren’t partisan. And the math doesn’t get friendlier with time.

So here’s the question we need to ask—loudly, persistently, and maybe with just a touch of righteous fury: Do we want a government that can function 30 years from now, or are we content handing our grandkids an IOU the size of a steel beam?

Because we have choices. Hard ones, yes. But real ones. Cut entitlements? Raise broad-based taxes? Adopt fiscal rules like other developed countries? Any of those paths would be better than our current strategy of “let it ride.”

This is the fork in the road. One path leads to a reckoning. The other leads to a reckoning with interest.

The train is leaving the station. And in Pittsburgh, we know what happens when you miss the last train.

Get on board—or get left behind.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/us-debt-growth-eventually-will-force-hard-choices-by-sita-nataraj-slavov-2025-03