Much of the "growth" that's supposed to fund public and private obligations is fictitious. Please read Michael Hudson's brief comments for a taste of how this works: The "Next" Financial Crisis and Public Banking as the Response.
The mainstream financial media swallows the bogus "growth" story without question because that story is the linchpin of the entire status quo: if it's revealed as inaccurate, i.e. statistical sleight of hand, the whole idea that "growth" can effortlessly fund all future obligations goes up in flames.
Combine that "growth" has been grossly over-estimated with an increasing concentration of wealth and income in the top .1% of 1%, and the only possible conclusion is there's less available to pay fast-rising obligations out of what's left to the bottom 99.9%.
We've been paying our obligations with debt for the past decade. Look at the chart below of the debt to GDP ratio--it has skyrocketed as GDP has inched higher while debt has exploded. (Remove the fictitious "growth" in GDP and the picture worsens significantly.)
Recall that the federal, state and local governments pay interest on all the money they borrow to fund deficit spending, i.e. every dollar spent above and beyond tax revenues. All that interest is an increasing obligation that must be paid in the future. Borrowing more to pay interest increases the interest payments due in the future--a classic self-reinforcing runaway feedback loop.
Politicians get re-elected by increasing entitlements and obligations without regard to how they will be funded. "Growth" will effortlessly take care of everything--that's the centerpiece assumption of all conventional economics, free-market, Keynesian and socialist alike.
The obligations that have been promised are expanding at a nearly exponential rate, as healthcare costs continue to soar and the number of government pensioners is rising rapidly. This chart illustrates the basic dynamic: the tax revenues required to fund these obligations are far outstripping the income and wealth of the bottom 95% of the populace.
Consider this chart of real GDP per capita, i.e. per person. Real GDP is adjusted to remove inflation from the picture, so this is supposed to be "real growth." How many people are demonstrably 19% better off than they were in 2000?
Here's the uncomfortable reality: the means to pay all these future obligations-- the real-world economy, and the wealth and income of the vast majority of the populace-- are far too modest to fund the fast-expanding obligations,which include interest due on the ever-increasing mountain of public and private debt.
Put these dynamics together and you get one outcome: the federal government cannot possibly pay all its obligations out of tax revenues nor can it raise taxes high enough to do so without gutting tax revenues via a recession.
The only way to pay all these future obligation is by creating new money, which in a stagnant, dysfunctional economy can only reduce the purchasing power of the currency, in effect robbing every holder of the currency of wealth and income.
Here's the end-game, folks: Venezuela. The nostrum has it that "the government can't go broke because it can always print more money." True, but as the wretched populace of Venezuela has discovered, there is a consequence of that money-creation to meet obligations: the destruction of the currency, and thus the wealth and income of everyone forced to use that currency.
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