| In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the money supply in the United States (as measured by M1) has quintupled over the past five years as the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the economy. At the same time, public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) jumped nearly 25% and is now among the highest of all industrialized nations. Even more concerning, total federal net liabilities and unfunded social insurance obligations have grown from $20.4 trillion in 2000 to $110.1 trillion in 2021. These disturbing trends have prompted David M. Walker, the immediate former comptroller general of the United States, to get behind an effort to introduce a Federal Fiscal Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would place strict limits on federal debt levels. His proposal is not a balanced budget amendment. Instead, it would limit public debt to GDP to ensure fiscal sustainability over time. The stakes are enormous. Some of the industrialized nations with higher public debt to GDP ratios than the United States (133%) are Japan (257%), Greece (207%), and Italy (159%). Recent studies by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project that U.S. public debt/GDP will exceed 200% by 2050.
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