Congress has bankrupted America's future | Eugene Steuerle

Reckless tax and budget policies have stifled upwardmobility for young and working class Americans, says budget expert Eugene Steuerle. Bipartisan dysfunction is to blame.

The federal government spends the equivalent of about $90,000 per U.S. household per year—yet many Americans don’t see the benefits. Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and tax subsidies (primarily for wealthy households) swallow up the lion’s share of the federal budget every year, alongwith interest on the national debt.

All of this automatic spending means no room in the federalbudget for investments in America’s future, argues budget expert Eugene Steuerle, while many Americans are losing out. In 2023, for instance, just nine percent of the federal budget went toward programs for children—while 11 percent wasspent on interest on the debt. In 2024, the federal government spent $880 billion for interest on the debt, compared to $80billion for the Department of Education.

In his new book, Abandoned: How Republicans and Democrats Deserted the Working Class, the Young and theAmerican Dream, Steuerle blames a broken budget process that rewards short-term fixes and a Congress too polarized to tackle entitlement reform. He also argues that Republicans’ fixation on tax cuts has vastly contributed to inequality, while Democrats’ focus on consumption over investment has meant insufficient attention to helping working class Americans build wealth. The net result, Steuerle says, is a collapse in “fiscal democracy.” Increasingly, Americans are losing their stake in the federal spending as entitlements and debt consume the entirety—and then some—of the nation’s future budget.

Host: Anne Kim

Guest: Eugene Steuerle, Richard B. Fisher chair at the Urban Institute

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
• 00:12 Social Security and Medicare Imbalances
• 01:08 Tax Cuts and Inequality
• 02:36 Wealth Inequality and Fiscal Democracy
• 05:04 Promoting Upward Mobility
• 07:30 Current Policies and Their Impact
• 09:11 Solutions and Fiscal Democracy
• 11:51 Breaking Through Short-term Thinking