The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just announced that the federal budget ran in the red by a whopping $1.8 trillion during fiscal year 2024. Even for Washington, that is a big number. Meanwhile, both presidential candidates are out buying votes with more giveaways that will only swell the tide of red ink. Outstanding amounts of federal debt already exceed the economy’s annual output of goods and services. Worse, the nation’s fiscal structure all but guarantees that relative debt burdens will continue to grow regardless of who wins in November.

Worse still, few, if any, in Washington seem bothered by the situation. When Washington does turn to budget matters, it always seems to seek distractions rather than venture into the politically turbulent waters that surround the budget’s underlying problem: the uncontrollable growth of entitlement spending. Since this sad pattern seems set to continue, the nation faces less than upbeat economic and financial prospects.

Some years ago, when it was still politically fashionable to worry over budget deficits and an accumulation of debt, the political establishment distracted itself from the underlying problem with talk of “tipping points.” Identifying that moment when the weight of government debt becomes unsupportable allowed politicians and not a few economists to issue grave warnings but few solutions. The fact is that no such “tipping point” exists. Japan, for instance, carries a government debt burden of some 260 percent of that country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Though Japan’s economy is hardly a juggernaut of economic growth, it runs smoothly enough and produces high levels of prosperity. In contrast, the United States........

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