Six months into the 2008 fiscal year (budget years run from September), the federal budget deficit is already $311 Billion. "That figure would represent a big jump from the fiscal 2007 deficit of $162 billion, admitted the White House. But, measured as a percentage of the nation's gross domestic product, $410 billion in red ink is well within recent historical norms, according to administration budget documents," reports the Christian Science Monitor. "A bipartisan group of experts organized by Brookings and the Heritage Foundation recommends that Congress enact explicit long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and set limits on the automatic entitlement spending growth. Such action would force Congress to make trade-offs between entitlements and other fiscal priorities."

In our Deficits and Debt Issue Paper, Peter G. Peterson is quoted as stating that "The temptation to buy votes from boomers and seniors by piling massive unfunded liabilities on future generations ($74 trillion at last count) seems hard to resist. According to humorist Dave Barry, 'it's like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering everything on the menu, secure in the knowledge that when the bill comes, you'll be dead.' [...] [B]oth political parties have formed an unholy alliance an undeclared war on the future. An undeclared war, that is, on our children. From neither party do we hear anything about sacrificing today for a better tomorrow."

What do you think about the federal government running annual and increasing budget deficits? Learn more in our Deficits and Debt Issue Paper and share your thoughts in the Forums.