This week on Facing the Future we'll assess the risks and costs of rising federal debt with Ben Harris, vice president and director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. We’ll also get his take on congressional negotiations over a major spending and tax bill and whether the economy is headed for a recession.

This week on Facing the Future the guest is Alex Durante, senior economist at the Tax Foundation. We'll discuss the economic effects of President Trump's tariffs and whether Republicans in Congress can find a way to extend about $4 trillion worth of expiring tax cuts without adding it all to the debt.

This week on Facing the Future, Jessica Riedl, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joined me to discuss her list of the top 10 federal budget gimmicks and the potential for tariffs to raise revenues, harm the economy or both.

As we went through Riedl’s list of budget gimmicks, it was clear that many of them are in play this year. She mentioned, for example, “fake expiration dates” and using a “current policy” baseline. A key feature of the recently passed congressional budget resolution is the use of a current policy baseline to assume that extending the expiration date of the 2017 tax cuts will have no budgetary effect.