From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: GAO: America's Money Matters - Understanding the Nation's Long-Term Fiscal Health Description: A look at the nation's financial condition and future, and opportunities to improve it. The federal government faces an unsustainable long-term fiscal future, with increasingly large projected deficits driving high debt levels. As the population ages and health care costs increase, spending for Social Security, federal health care programs, and other program spending is projected to increase more than revenue. GAO recommends that Congress create a fiscal plan to provide policymakers with a framework to help support difficult policy decisions to achieve a more sustainable fiscal policy. Related GAO Works: GAO-23-106201. The Nation's Fiscal Health: Road Map Needed to Address Projected Unsustainable Debt Levels Released: May 2023 [Speaker 1] GAO presents America's Money Matters. [Speaker 2] Since 2020, people have seen the economic effects of the pandemic and other major world events. [Speaker 3] As well as the federal government's response. Those responses have included such steps as an increase in federal spending to help people through the COVID 19 pandemic. In a post-pandemic economy. Interest rates rose. These events are compounding some preexisting stressors on the federal government's fiscal condition. [Speaker 4] At GAO, we look at debt spending and revenue as key indicators of the nation's fiscal health. If spending surpasses revenues, that's a deficit. And deficits have reached record highs in recent years with no sign of letting up. Why? [Speaker 2] An aging population and the high price of health care are driving up costs for programs like social Security and Medicare. Natural disasters, pandemics and other unpredictable emergencies put pressure on an already stretched federal budget. At the same time, tax revenue has remained constant for the last 20 years and is projected to continue that trend even as spending continues to outpace it. [Speaker 3] So to cover the deficit, the federal government borrows from corporations, state and local governments, foreign governments, federal trust funds and individual people like you. High interest rates make it more expensive for everyone to borrow money, including the federal government. New debt costs more and maturing debt may have to be refinanced at higher rates. [Speaker 2] As for that debt, right now it's tens of trillions of dollars and it's growing faster than the economy that supports it. That's an unsustainable fiscal path. Getting off that path requires Congress to make difficult policy decisions about spending, revenue and more. [Speaker 4] GAO's Annual Fiscal Health report includes a walkthrough of the key considerations for developing the kind of long term fiscal plan that can inform those decisions. [Speaker 1] Find out more about the nation's fiscal health at GAO.gov [ End ]