The financial crisis and recession of the past few years have seriously strained the American economy and thus the capacity of the United States to play its accustomed international role. Unprecedented annual budget deficits, a steep trajectory for the costs of entitlement and health care programs, and soaring increases in the national debt pose severe challenges. As a proportion of the overall economy, deficits in the federal budget as well as the total federal debt have reached their highest levels since the end of World War II. According to a widely cited estimate by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and assuming current policies continue, public debt would reach nearly 90 percent of GDP by the year 2020, leading the Director of the CBO to warn that federal debt could grow to “unsustainable levels.”