Tackling the National Debt

• Editor's Note

  Editor's Note by William McKenzie, Editor of The Catalyst

Conversations

• Finding Budget Compromise: Case Studies from Recent Presidencies

  A Conversation with James A. Baker, III, Former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury

• We Cannot Burden Future Generations with Unpaid Debts

  A Conversation with John Kasich, Former Governor of Ohio and Former Congressman (R-Ohio)

• How Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are Driving the National Debt — and How We Can Fix It

  A Conversation with Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

Essays

• Our $23 Trillion National Debt: An Inter-generational Injustice

  An Essay by Michael A. Peterson, Chairman and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation

• The National Debt Worries Americans, but We Are Not Clear About the Solutions

  An Essay by Holly Kuzmich, Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute

• How Would You Balance the Budget?

  An Essay and Reader Quiz by Robert Bixby, Executive Director of the Concord Coalition

• Listening to Washington, Smith, and Friedman: The Moral Case Against Public Debt

  An Essay by James R. Otteson, Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, Professor of Economics, and Executive Director of the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University

• Debt Lessons from the States: Investing in Public Employees while Protecting Taxpayers

  An Essay by Margaret Spellings, President and CEO of Texas 2036 and Former Secretary of Education

• The Politically Active Generations: Millennials, Gen Z Care About the Debt — and More

  An Essay by Gordon Gray, Director of Fiscal Policy at the American Action Forum

• Why the National Debt Has Yet to Resonate with Students

  An Essay by Evangeline Mathis, Senior at Southern Methodist University and Catalyst Editorial Intern

• A Historical Look at National Debt Teaches an Unambiguous Lesson

  An Essay by J.H. Cullum Clark, Director at the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative

• The Choice is Ours: The Budget Deficit is a Lack of Prioritization

  An Essay by Matthew Rooney, Managing Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative

• Cutting Foreign Aid is Not the Answer to Our Debt Crisis

  An Essay by Natalie Gonnella-Platts, Director of the Women's Initiative at the Bush Institute, and Lindsay Lloyd, Bradford M. Freeman Director of Human Freedom at the Bush Institute