The United States is poised to add trillions of dollars to the national debt over the next decade as the mounting costs of social safety net programs and growing interest expenses dig the nation into a deeper fiscal hole, according to a report released on Friday by the Congressional Budget Office.
The new budget forecasts predicted that the United States will record a $1.9 trillion budget deficit this fiscal year and that annual deficits over the next decade will total $21.1 trillion. That will be piled on to a national debt that currently exceeds $36 trillion.
By 2035, the debt as a share of the U.S. economy will rise to 118 percent, the largest in history. The debt is currently 100 percent of gross domestic product.
Although the figures show slightly smaller deficits than what the C.B.O. projected last June, thanks to higher salaries and stock values, the nation’s fiscal situation is poised to become far more precarious.
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