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The latest Congressional Budget Office outlook confirms what conservatives have warned for years: the nation’s debt trajectory is unsustainable, with debt held by the public near record levels and interest costs set to balloon in the coming decade. This isn’t abstract math — rising debt crowds out investment, raises borrowing costs, and shrinks future policy options. Policymakers need to stop treating fiscal decline as inevitable and start treating it as the crisis it is.
Steve Forbes makes the blunt and necessary point that reflexively raising taxes or slashing benefits is both politically toxic and economically counterproductive. Higher tax rates will choke growth, and blunt entitlement cuts without structural reform will only punish those who planned their retirements under existing promises. The responsible conservative response is to put growth and reform ahead of punitive revenue grabs and headline-seeking austerity.
The real lever is economic growth: modest increases in long-run growth from the CBO’s baseline of roughly 1.8 percent to the 3–3.5 percent range would dramatically shrink the debt picture without confiscatory tax hikes. Growth creates revenues organically and reduces the relative burden of fixed entitlements and interest. That means policy must focus on unleashing the private sector rather than treating it as a cash cow for Washington.
Conservative prescriptions are straightforward and pro-worker: lower marginal tax rates, cut needless regulation, stabilize the dollar, and reform monetary policy to support a sound currency and investment. Forbes rightly warns that a weak dollar and heavy-handed intervention only invite higher inflation and slower growth, so restoring monetary prudence belongs at the top of any serious plan. Rather than surrendering to tax-and-cut rhetoric, leaders should pursue pro-growth tax relief and regulatory rollback to revive opportunity.
On entitlements, the right answer is reform, not reckless retrenchment. Personal retirement accounts for new workers, expanded Health Savings Accounts, and patient-centered health reforms would protect seniors while making the system sustainable for future generations. That kind of restructuring preserves dignity, rewards savings and responsibility, and avoids turning retirement into a permanent political battlefield.
If elected officials want to defend prosperity, they must stop treating deficits as an abstract problem and start treating them as an invitation to reform that empowers growth and responsibility. The political class can either reach for easy tax hikes and scapegoats, or choose the harder, honest path of pro-growth policy and entitlement modernization. Conservatives should push that agenda relentlessly — growth is the solvent for debt, and economic freedom is the surest protection for future prosperity.
