It is certainly true that the policy choices made by governments to deal with the financial crisis and ensuing recession have caused a significant deterioration in fiscal balances and debt levels in many countries.
However, the underlying  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  trends that are at the root of unsustainable fiscal deficits in many countries, including the U.S., have been in place and known for some time. In the U.S., for example, the major long-run drivers of the structural deficit at the federal level are entitlements such as health care and Social Security.