Coronavirus may destroy 40% of the US economy, officials say

The coronavirus pandemic could wipe out 40% of the U.S. economy, quadruple the federal deficit to $3.7 trillion and push the national deb🐭t to nearly $27 tril✱lion, .

Fiscal 2020 debt and deficit figures𒆙 are on track to be the highest since World War II after Congress passed four massive coronavirus response bills; President Trump signed the measures.

Lawmakers will be ultimately be forced to tackle the government’s chronic financial woes given the looming insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, . But when they do, almost none of them will have any experience in successfully doing so.

Congress has not passed a major attack on the deficit since a 1997 law that capped a decade’s worth of politically costly but effective reduction measures.