Going Down a Dangerous Road

In a recent article (The Other D Word) I wrote about the rapidly growing US debt. We are borrowing at a fanatic pace these days.


Similar to your own household budget, if you do not live within your means, you go into debt. For Americans, that debt may be on credit card, a second mortgage on your home or some other means of deferring the repayment to the future.

For the US government, we issue Treasury bonds and other securities to cover the shortfall. That shortfall is called the US deficit. This represents governmental expenditures that are not covered by taxes and other forms of income.

This year the deficit has be growing rapidly.


According to a recent article in MarketWatch, The latest New York Times/CBS News poll found that Americans are alarmed by the hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the government on rescues of banks and automobile companies, and a majority of respondents say that the government should focus instead on cutting the federal deficit.

Similarly, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 58% of Americans want Obama and Congress to concentrate on keeping the budget deficit down. And 7 in 10 respondents said they had concerns about federal interventions in the economy, including Obama's decision to take an ownership stake in General Motors Corp. and the possibility of the government getting more involved in health care.