The University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service will host a panel discussion on March 12,examining the nation’s rising debt and what it could mean for Maine’s economy, public services, and the next generation of students entering the workforce.
“From D.C. to Downeast: Avoiding a Debt Crisis” will feature Carolyn Bourdeaux, president of The Concord Coalition and a former member of Congress, alongside Amanda Rector ‘10G, Maine’s state economist and a graduate of USM’s Muskie School of Public Service, and G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a longtime federal budget expert. Together, they’ll explore how national fiscal trends can have consequences here in Maine.
Bourdeaux said the scale of the current federal imbalance is already historic.
“We’re approaching $40 trillion in debt,” Bourdeaux said. “We are running roughly $2 trillion in annual deficits with no plan whatsoever to close the gap. It is unsustainable, to put it mildly.”
She said the burden is not theoretical, pointing to the growing share of federal revenue consumed by interest payments.
“One out of every five of our tax dollars, 20 percent, is roughly where we are now,” Bourdeaux said. “And it will rise to close to 25 percent over the next decade.”
Those payments, she said, aren’t funding any new investments.
“It’s not going to roads. It’s not going to health. It’s not going to anything productive,” Bourdeaux said. “It’s just paying off the debt from previous generations.”
If current trends continue, Bourdeaux said we could see the economy struggle for a long time — or face more sudden problems if investors start to lose confidence.
“What you can get into is a spiral where all of a sudden the interest rates start to jump up, and then we’re starting to have to issue more debt in order to pay those interest payments,” Bourdeaux said. “And it just starts going higher and higher.”
Rector said Maine’s reliance on federal funding makes this especially consequential at the state level.
“The states receive a lot of funding from the federal government, and it comes through a lot of different pathways,” Rector said. “If the federal government is either unable to meet its existing obligations or all of a sudden is having to redirect all of the revenues toward debt service, it’s going to dramatically reduce the amount of funding that goes out to states.”
She points to Maine’s demographics as a critical factor.
“We have the highest percentage of the population aged 65 and over,” Rector said. “We already have a higher share of households receiving Social Security than the rest of the nation.”
Bourdeaux notes that under current projections, the Social Security Trust Fund faces a shortfall in the early 2030s.
“That doesn’t mean you’re not going to get Social Security benefits,” Bourdeaux said. “But what that means is it triggers an automatic, across-the-board cut to everybody’s Social Security benefits of around 28 percent.”
For students preparing to enter the workforce, Bourdeaux described the issue in generational terms.
“This debt is their obligation to pay for their parents’ and grandparents’ retirement,” Bourdeaux said. “They are on the hook for this.”
She added that the long-term fiscal outlook could shape the opportunities available to younger Americans entering adulthood.
“It has enormous implications for their ability to succeed, their ability to start a business, their ability to get a loan to get a home, their ability for things to be affordable for them to grow and to prosper.”
Both Bordeaux and Rector emphasized the importance of discussing these types of complex public policy issues .
“That’s really what the universities are about,” Rector said. “Let’s take the combination of educating people about a thing that you may not necessarily know that much about and have some good, honest, open and civil discussions about it.”
Bourdeaux said she hopes attendees leave with practical tools for civic engagement.
“I hope we can give people a good set of questions to ask their elected officials about how they are going to address this problem,” Bourdeaux said.
The event is open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public.
EVENT: From D.C. to Downeast: Avoiding a Debt Crisis
WHEN: March 12, 2026, from 5:30–7:00 p.m.
WHERE: McGoldrick Center Salon A, USM Portland Campus, or via Zoom
The event is free and open to the public, though advance registration is required.