The primary drivers of our growing debt burden are the “Big 3” entitlements of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Yet as part of the debt ceiling deal that created sequestration when the Super Committee failed, politicians effectively fenced off nearly two-thirds of the federal budget and the main source of our over-spending. 

While markets are again correctly obsessing over Italy and Spain’s poor economic growth prospects, as reflected in markedly higher government bond yields for those two countries, they seem to have taken their eye off two upcoming political events that could usher in a new and more serious phase of the...

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In the months ahead, there will be a renewed intensification of the European debt crisis that could have major implications for the US economy.

What did the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction’s announcement on November 23 contain: a successful bipartisan strategy for reducing the deficit or a disheartening lack of consensus? On the heels of the announcement, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), one of the 12 members of the committee, speaks at  AEI to discuss the details and implications of the super committee’s decisions.

The rescue offers Greece the opportunity for an extended struggle to settle for slow economic growth for an extended period. This debt crisis is not over...

A potential European banking crisis would spill over to the US financial system, which has very close links to the European banking system.

Dan Sumner, Barry Goodwin and Vincent Smith, co-directors of the AEI 2012 Farm Bill Initiative, will discuss the ways that reducing farm subsidies can contribute to federal deficit reduction and debt control and improve the efficiency of American agriculture without affecting the security of the U.S. food supply chain.

Forget Mao, the Chinese are channeling Rahm Emmanuel. President Obama's first chief of staff popularized the dictum that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste" back in 2008. And it has been taken to heart by China's leadership, which sees America's deficit crisis as...