How will government (in developed countries) restore budgets and ultimately pay down debt in times of slow growth?
How is government balancing the need to reduce debt against the need to stimulate growth?
Why am I paying for previous generations’ excesses?
Public debt is expected to operate as a significant constraint on fiscal and policy options through to 2030 and beyond. Governments' ability to bring debt under control and find new ways of delivering public services will affect their capacity to respond to major social, economic and environmental challenges.
As KPMG International research has shown, contrary to widespread belief, today's public debt problems did not simply emerge out of the global financial crisis and the stimulus spending that followed. Most major economies had already amassed sizable debts before 2008 and were posting budget deficits in the five+ years preceding the global financial crisis.1 This position made the road back to prosperity a much longer one.
1KPMG International. January 2013. “Walking the Fiscal Tightrope” (PDF 2.35 MB).