The Fiscal Challenges of the Post-Obama Era

As President Barack Obama approaches the end of his time in office, the United States is approaching a fiscal day of reckoning.

That's apparent in two startling reports on the budget outlook released in July that have gone largely unnoticed in a political season dominated by purposeful distractions and peripheral issues.

The first is the Obama administration's mid-session review — an updated budget projection produced each summer by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The mid-session review makes detailed projections of federal spending, revenue, deficits, and debt over the coming decade.