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. 

Political dysfunction. Partisanship at record levels. Attack politics run amok. And public approval of Congress scraping the single digits (Sen. John McCain is fond of saying it's down to blood rlatives and paid staff).

Since 2007, and apparently well below the radar, the safety net has expanded radically. The benefits available to those who do not work are sharply higher, and likely explain a good deal of the high unemployment we still see today. Staying home and collecting a government check has never been so attractive.

This article is the first part of a two-part examination of the contentious issue of how state governments' provision of goods and services to the public should be taxed under a VAT.

Alan D. Viard, a resident scholar at AEI, reviews the budget outlook, the need for tax reform and the benefits of moving to a progressive consumption tax. He also discusses his forthcoming book, Progressive Consumption Taxation: The X Tax Revisited, which he coauthored with Robert Carroll of Ernst & Young. The book will be published by AEI Press in the Spring.

A university is more than the sum of its ethnic parts. It is comprised of individuals — black, white, Hispanic, Asian and others — who should be admitted or rejected without their race or ethnic heritage making any difference.

If we expect to solve our debt and deficit problems, we must eventually face the fact that the major entitlement programs must be on the table. That includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.