Remarks at dinner honoring Joe Ackermann October 25, 2012, by Martin Feldstein: In the last few years the United States experienced an explosive increase in the annual government budget deficit and in the size of the national debt. The budget deficit went from $160 billion or 1.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2007 to more than $1 trillion and 7.3 percent of GDP in the current year [...]