How the National Debt is Fiscally Unsustainable

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From the article:

Achieving fiscal sustainability via generationally fair means requires an understanding of the overall adjustment needed to close the fiscal gap (fiscal gap accounting), and how much more any one generation will pay if another generation pays less (generational accounting).

• Applying fiscal gap accounting, the study finds that the US official debt is just 6 percent of the federal government’s true fiscal gap of $205 trillion.
• Applying generational accounting, the study finds that placing the burden of the fiscal gap solely on unborn generations would require:
  • Giving all future American children a bill of $420,600, which would rise as the expected wages of each new generation rose.
  • Taxing future generations, on average, roughly 60 cents of every dollar they earn, net of government transfers received.

Source: Laurence Kotlikoff, "Assessing Fiscal Sustainability," Mercatus Center, December 12, 2013