The Congressional Budget Office has released a report on the long-term budget outlook, projecting federal spending and tax revenue over the next 30 years. The report is alarming, showing soaring deficits and debt , higher spending and taxes , and a slowing economy.

The report clearly shows the country has a massive spending problem. The numbers reveal that the rising budget deficits are the result of record-high levels of spending and not due to lower tax revenue. The CBO states flatly that the “increase in the deficits results from faster growth in spending than in revenues.”

The report details how both spending and revenue will increase over the next three decades to levels well above their historic norms. The increase in spending is unparalleled in our history.

Spending will increase from 25.2% of gross domestic product in 2022 to 29.1% in 2053, significantly higher than the average level of 21.0% over the past 30 years. Spending will average 25% over the next 10 years, an unprecedented level. The United States has exceeded 25% only during two national emergencies, World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic. Spending levels during the Vietnam War, the Great Society, the Reagan years, and the Great Recession were not even close to the spending levels projected over the coming years.

Revenue is also projected to reach historically high levels, increasing from 18.4% to 19.1% of GDP, higher than the 30-year average level of 17.2%. Over the last 80 years, revenue as a percent of GDP has exceeded 19% only eight times, and each time the high tax burden has led to an economic slowdown.

Slower economic growth is a major contributor to the deficit and debt problem. CBO projects real GDP to grow at only 1.7% a year over the next three decades, a prolonged period of slow growth we have never experienced. By comparison, real economic growth averaged twice that amount at 3.4% from 1983 to 2007.

Raising taxes is not the answer to our fiscal problems. Tax increases would slow economic growth and worsen the problem. Reducing the growth of federal spending, increasing economic growth, and generating increased revenue is the only solution to our long-term deficit and debt problem.

Bruce Thompson was a U.S. Senate aide, assistant secretary of Treasury for legislative affairs, and the director of government relations at Merrill Lynch for 22 years.