Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal deficits and debt have reached historic highs in recent years. Congress has taken action to address the fiscal imbalance, but longer-term challenges remain. The Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 limits spending over the next decade and leads to an improved fiscal outlook. The act targets discretionary spending, and under both of GAO’s simulations, discretionary spending as a share of the economy would be lower in 2022 than at any point in the last 50 years. Further, as the economy recovers, revenue increases and spending decreases. While the BCA improved the outlook, it did not eliminate the longer-term challenge, in part because it did not focus on the fundamental drivers of the government’s future fiscal imbalances—a structural gap between revenues and spending driven by rising health care costs and demographics. As our 2011 simulations showed, if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is implemented as intended it would have a major effect on the gap but would not eliminate it. The aging of the population and rising health care costs will continue putting upward pressure on spending. Assuming revenue in the long term …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Jack Phelps. Phelps joined the Army Air Forces in 1942. He completed flight officer training and navigation school. Phelps served as a B-25 bombardier and navigator with the 12th Air Force, 340th Bomb Group, 489th Bomb Squadron. He completed 39 missions in the European Theater. He flew over Italy, including Brenner Pass and Sicily, targeting enemy airfields, railroads and bridges. Phelps was stationed around Mount Vesuvius when it began erupting in March of 1944. He continued his service in the reserves after the war ended.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Thomas Knighten Starnes. Starnes graduated from business school in 1941 and joined the Navy that fall. He was a civilian pilot and assisted in gunnery training in Las Vegas. When preparing for deployment to the Pacific, Starnes was instructed that in the event of impending enemy capture he should kill as many Japanese as he could but also warned that the Japanese would not take prisoners, so he was to save one bullet for himself. In 1944 he was assigned to the 58th Fighter Group, 69th Fighter Squadron, as a P-47 pilot. He supported invasions by strafing and dropping napalm. Following an attack by Japanese holdouts, Starnes recruited native Filipinos to help him hunt them out of the underbrush. He captured 27, among them simple cooks and butchers, and had them burned and killed. Toward the end of the war, flying missions over Japan, Starnes witnessed the mushroom cloud form over Nagaski. Upon returning home, he was given the opportunity to fly jets, but he elected to be discharged instead.