ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter reviews the core arguments of the book and considers the avenues for reform. The growth in the debt-to-GDP ratio has been a product of the revenue constraint, the inexorable expansion of mandatory spending, and political polarization that has undermined regular order in the budget process and efforts to control deficits. There have been important debates over reforms that could loosen the revenue constraint, change the trajectory of spending in the largest mandatory programs, and address the disorder in the budget process. But each face formidable political obstacles, including the Republican Party’s commitment to a low tax regime and the difficulties of building broad reform coalitions in an age of sharp polarization.
