Understanding the national debt and the risks of a fiscal crisis

For the first time since the end of World War II, the national debt held by the public — $31.5 trillion — is roughly the same size as the entire U.S. economy. And in just over two decades the debt could be 50% larger than gross domestic product, according to Congressional Budget Office projections.

What are the sources of this unprecedented rise in federal debt?

Watch this recording of a webinar held on July 14, 2026, co-hosted with EconoFact, a non-partisan website from Tufts University, to find out. Panelists cover:

• What’s behind the rise in federal debt?
• How was high debt brought down after World War II and are there lessons for today from that experience?
• How do higher debt, interest rates and the structure of debt maturity affect the interest burden of the debt?
• How does high debt tie the government’s hands and limit its ability to address challenges?
• Does high debt lead to inflation?
• How and when does a fiscal problem become a fiscal crisis, and what happens then?

This discussion will drew on two new EconoFact Explainers: “Federal debt and the risk of a fiscal crisis” and “The interest burden of the federal debt.” Also relevant from The Journalist’s Resource: “How and why the US government borrows money.”

Panelists

Daniel Bergstresser is an associate professor of finance at the Brandeis International Business School whose research focuses on municipal finance and on the impact of taxation, regulation, and market structure on financial markets. He worked for Barclays Global Investors in London as Head of European Credit Research.

Karen Dynan is professor of the practice in the Department of Economics and at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She served as chief economist at the U.S. Treasury and before that as co-director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution.

Douglas Elmendorf is a Harvard University distinguished service professor. He served as dean of the Harvard Kennedy School and previously as director of the Congressional Budget Office, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Treasury, and Senior Economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Moderators

Michael Klein is the William L. Clayton Professor of International Economic Affairs at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and is founder and executive editor of EconoFact.

Clark Merrefield is senior editor for economics and legal systems at The Journalist’s Resource.