David Wessel:

Well, there's clearly no reason to worry about today's deficits, as you say, 50-year low in unemployment, inflation stable.

I think that's why the politicians don't seem to feel the need to deal with this. And there's certainly not very much pressure from the public. The problem is in the future. If something is unsustainable, it can't go on forever.

And every year, we're borrowing more and more money because we have promised to pay benefits to people that the current tax code will not cover. And at some point, we're going to have to do something. Some people think we will have a crisis.

I'm not sympathetic to that view, because people have been predicting crises since you and I started covering this stuff in the early '90s. And the crisis doesn't arrive.

But we know, from economics, that eventually this will erode the amount of — the rate of growth, and we will have lower living standards. And will be spending more and more of our tax money to pay interest on the debt, a good chunk of which will go to foreigners.