Rising Debt May Cause Sun to Set on U.S. Economy: Chart of Day (David Wilson)

The CHART OF THE DAY shows how the public debt, or the national debt aside from liabilities for entitlement programs, has climbed in the past year. The chart goes back to March 2005, when the U.S. Treasury started giving daily updates on the debt.

Public debt will keep growing rapidly, Posner wrote earlier this week on a blog he shares with Gary Becker, an economics and sociology professor at the University of Chicago.

Declining tax revenue, rising Medicare costs, congressional reluctance to cut spending or raise levies, and the likely cost of efforts to overhaul health care and promote climate control will push the debt higher, in Posner’s view.

“At some point the wheels may start coming off the chassis,” he wrote.

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