Comment: US must defuse Covid-19’s ticking time bomb of debt

The United States cannot defeat the pandemic like a military foe but it can learn from looking back at its post-war economic recovery

The US Treasury should give tomorrow’s children a break by issuing 50 and 100-year bonds. Picture: Getty

The United States today not only looks ill, but dead broke. To offset the pandemic-induced “Great Cessation”, the US Federal Reserve and Congress have marshalled staggering sums of stimulus spending out of fear that the economy would otherwise plunge to 1930s soup-kitchen levels.

The 2020 federal budget deficit will be about 18 per cent of GDP, and the US debt-to-GDP ratio will soon hurdle over the 100 per cent mark. Such figures have not been ...