2 After that, it projects the budget outlook to deteriorate even more rapidly, with federal debt held by the public reaching almost 90 percent of GDP by 2020 and 150 percent of GDP by 2030, up from about 60 percent at the end of fiscal year 2010.
The long-term fiscal challenges confronting the nation are especially daunting because they are mostly the product of powerful underlying trends, not short-term or temporary factors. The two most important driving forces for the federal budget are the aging of the U.S. population and rapidly rising health-care costs.