Facing the Future

This week on Facing the Future, Joshua Gordon, a Vice President of Health Care at Arnold Ventures, explains why growing health care costs are a challenge for family, business and government budgets. He also suggests some bipartisan cost control ideas.

This week on Facing the Future, Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress explains why the national debt matters more than it used to and why artificial intelligence is not likely to fix the problem.

This week on Facing the Future, we hear why the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) is warning the President and Congress that urgent and sustained action is needed to improve the nation's fiscal outlook. Jeff Arkin, Director of Strategic Issues at GAO, is our guest.

This week on Facing the Future, Mark Warshawsky of the American Enterprise Institute explains why the projected finances of both Social Security and Medicare were substantially worse in the 2026 trustees report than they were last year and why early action is the best way to prevent sudden cuts.

This week on Facing the Future, G. William Hoagland, Senior Vice President of the Bipartisan Policy Center, lays out the case for public engagement on major budget decisions, gives an update on the federal budget and reacts to the new Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports.

This week on Facing the Future, host Bob Bixby joins Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Jonathan Silver of Affinity Solutions and Andrew Lewis of the University of Cincinnati's Portman Center in a panel discussion on strategies for getting the public to put deficit reduction on the political agenda.

This week on Facing the Future, Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute lays out the pros and cons of the president's request for a 50 percent increase in the defense budget.

This week on Facing the Future, former U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) explains why he supports a new fiscal commission as a way of finding solutions to the nation's growing debt and how reinstating the "Conrad rule" in the Senate would help.

This week on Facing the Future, Molly Reynolds of the Brookings Institution explains why the budget resolution recently passed by Congress is highly unusual and a year behind schedule.

This week on Facing the Future, students from the University of Iowa and their faculty adviser Dr. Alexandra Nica, describe how they reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio over the next 30 years and what they learned in winning this year's nationwide Fiscal Challenge competition.

This week on Facing the Future, Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development at the Progressive Policy Institute, discusses why new tax cut proposals have him wondering whether Democrats learned the wrong lesson from 2024. 

This week on Facing the Future, Jessica Riedl of the Brookings Institution evaluates President Trump's new budget and describes her findings on the Biden fiscal legacy.

The week on Facing the Future, former Senator Rob Portman and Concord Coalition Executive Director Carolyn Bourdeaux lay out the opportunities for impactful legislation to bring the debt under control. Alex Brill, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, moderates the discussion.

This week on Facing the Future, Alex Brill of the American Enterprise Institute will discuss tax policy and the budget. Then, Jon McHenry of North Star Opinion Research will explain the latest findings of the Peterson Foundation's Fiscal Confidence Index.

This week on Facing the Future, former Obama and Clinton economic advisor Jason Furman talks about the economic fallout from the war in Iran and the importance of putting the debt on a sustainable path.

This week on Facing the Future, Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office discusses the economy, potential war costs and how the rapid growth of U.S. debt is already having a negative effect on the economy and living standards.

This week on Facing the Future, Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, outlines a "break glass in case of emergency" plan for the next economic shock.

This week on Facing the Future, we'll look at the potential cost of U.S. military operations in Iran, the President's State of the Union Address and our upcoming road trip to New Hampshire and Maine.

This week on Facing the Future we discussed the latest budget and economic projections from the Congressional Budget Office with the agency's director Dr. Phillip Swagel. He describes why the national debt is headed for record territory and the fiscal fallout from the Supreme Court's decision to invalidate some of the President's tariffs.

This week on Facing the Future Wendell Primus, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Senior Policy Advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, described his plan to keep the Social Security trust fund from becoming insolvent as soon as 2032. Some political pain will be required.

This week on Facing the Future, former Comptroller General of the United States and CEO of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) David Walker discussed his efforts to sound the alarm on the dangers of rising debt and unsustainable government commitments.

This week on Facing the Future, Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, explained the economic dangers of ignoring the nation's spiraling debt and suggested some Social Security and Medicare reforms that would help.  

This week on Facing the Future, former Ambassador to Denmark Richard Swett discusses a way forward on U.S. interests in Greenland and Alex Durante, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, evaluates the impact of President Trump's tariff agenda.

This week on Facing the Future we examined developments on the national security front with Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and author of a timely new book called  “ To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution ”  

This week on Facing the Future, former Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) discussed the growing U.S. debt burden, the case for a fiscal commission, and why it's bad policy to attack the Fed's independence.