To the editor:

President Joe Biden’s treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, called attention to our unsustainable national debt at her confirmation hearing this week. As I write this, our national debt is at $27.8 trillion dollars and grew by over $3 trillion in 2020 (partly due to a pandemic-induced downturn in our economy). We have run budget deficits every year for the last 20 years.

Debt is a measure of America’s financial health; not unlike our personal finances – the greater our debt, the worse shape we are in. If left unchecked, the national debt will lead to increased cost of living, lower wages and higher interest rates for all of us. And eventually, it will result in a financial crisis, significantly worse than what took place in 2008.

Secretary Yellen is correct, it is unsustainable. It will be good to see the new administration taking this seriously and what steps they will take to reduce the budget deficits.

Barbara Linert

Eagan

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