(From the FT.com) The US is heading for a public debt crisis unless action is taken soon to stabilize debt relative to national income, a bipartisan group of former congressmen, White House officials and budget experts warned on Monday.

“There is a real crisis looming,” said Bill Frenzel, a former Republican ranking member of the House budget committee. Jim Jones, a former Democratic chairman of the committee, said there was no way of knowing when a market backlash might materialise.

The group, known as the Pew-Peterson commission, called on Democrats and Republicans to agree on a binding debt to gross domestic product target of 60 per cent by 2018. Under the plan, an enforcement mechanism would impose spending cuts and a tax surcharge if Congress failed to achieve the target in 2018 and each year beyond.

The group estimated that on reasonable assumptions US debt would otherwise rise to 85 per cent of GDP by 2018 and more than 200 per cent of GDP by 2038.

Read more here: Washington warned of looming debt crisis