In the cover story, find out why the federal government's days of scaling back are over. Fueling the buildup are corporate accounting scandals, the war on terrorism and demands for a Medicare prescription drug program.

Figuring out how to equalize the tax burden across generations is easy. Deciding who's going to pay for it is the hard part.

When the government runs a deficit, it can borrow from the public—that is, it can create debt. Conversely, when the government runs a surplus, it can retire that debt. For the past three years, the federal government has recorded budget surpluses, and both the White House Office of Management...

Real-business-cycle models suggest that an increase in the rate of productivity growth increases the real rate of interest. But economic theory is ambiguous when it comes to the effect of government budget deficits on the real rate of interest. Similarly, little is known about the effect of...

Each year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publishes its Budget and Economic Outlook. The CBO’s deficit projections for the current fiscal year (FY) and the next 10 FYs are widely followed because they provide an assessment of the medium-term budget outlook based on current law and a...