The Congressional Budget Office projects that new federal borrowing over the next 10 years will total $12.4 trillion and that at the end of 2028, the debt will be $28.7 trillion — 96 percent of gross domestic product, up from 39 percent in 2008. But the CBO is required to pretend that Congress will not make matters worse. Its projections must assume the continuation of current law. So, the CBO must assume that the caps on defense and nondefense appropriations imposed in the Budget Control Act of 2011 will be enforced in 2020 and 2021. But those for 2018 and 2019 have just been discarded. How likely is a reversion to disagreeable discipline?
