The turning point will come, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters, when U.S. government promises to pay its debts lose credibility. As of 2023, they believed federal officials had no more than 20 years to fix the country’s finances, “after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt whether explicitly or implicitly (i.e., debt monetization producing significant inflation).”