It Turns Out That the Debt Matters After All

Is it time to start worrying about the debt?

This feels like a weird question to ask, I admit. The bond market is placid. Voters are preoccupied with other issues. The many dire things that fiscal hawks said would happen if we did not shrink the debt a decade ago have not come to pass. And neither party seems to have much interest in the country’s long-term fiscal trajectory; Democrats and Republicans recently walked away from debt-ceiling negotiations without doing much of anything.

Yet the country’s fiscal situation has changed dramatically, if quietly, in the past few years. Medicare and Social Security spending as the Baby Boomers age. The country’s borrowing costs, measured as a share of GDP, are at their highest level and rising. Despite strong growth, Washington is