Budgeting Our Way To Greece

President Obama has just released his 2013 Federal budget with a whopping $3.8 trillion in proposed spending.  This figure is only matched in U.S. history with his 2010 budget submission but granted that was at a time when we were fighting two wars and the severe effects of the Great Recession were taking a stronghold into our everyday lives.  A projected $900 billion shortfall in 2013 between spending and receipts translates into much of the same; we need to borrow just to pay our current bills.

When will it stop?  What president and congressional leaders of this country will step forward and actually make the severe cuts that are needed to halt this catastrophic borrowing year-after-year.  The George W. Bush Administration added $5 trillion to our nation's debt load during his tenure as President when initially campaigning on a promise to be the first president to "reduce our national debt by $2 trillion over the next ten years." Neither Republicans or Democrats can find a way to turn the spigot off.

We are on a path of destruction that likely the majority of the people of our nation are completely ignorant too.  In many ways, I believe that comes from our leadership as they seem to turn a blinds-eye to what road we are traveling.  Just improve the economy and it will take care of itself many at the Capitol seem to believe.  However, once the wheels of motion on the credibility of our country turns and our good faith promise of having the ability to pay our debt is viewed from a true lenders perspective, they will cut-off our "line of credit" and start demanding performance in the way of austerity and debt reduction.  Sound familiar?

The austerity, riots, chaos, death and destruction in Greece seems so far away and so unrelevant to a country the size of the United States.  And, with our economy improving, many feel that we are on the road to recovery, the last thing on their minds is a "return to the abyss."  Unfortunately, that is where we are headed.  So, when our national debt begins to approach $20 trillion by 2015 there will be grave concern from main street to Wall Street to the White House and it's not going to be pretty.  I just wish we didn't have to wait so long to actually start to fix the problem.