A taxing issue
Simon Johnson and James Kwak had good news and bad news for the hundreds of people who turned out to hear them talk about the U.S. national debt at MIT on Tuesday.The good news, Johnson said, is that, contrary to many public claims, the U.S. national debt level does not constitute a crisis right now.“We don’t think it’s a panic situation or an imminent disaster,” said Johnson, who with Kwak has written a new book about the debt issue, White House Burning, which was released this month by Pantheon Press.The bad news, however, is that there is no guarantee the debt situation will improve. As Johnson noted, the United States can shoulder its current debt load partly because of historically low interest rates on government bonds, which it issues to finance that debt. Should rates climb, growing interest payments on the debt could force painful cutbacks in other areas of...