The Deficit Is a Symptom, Spending Is the Disease

 by Michael D. Tanner
 

Sometime in the next week or so, the U.S. national debt will exceed $13.4 trillion.

To put that in perspective: If you earned $1 every second, it would take you 425,000 years to earn enough money to pay off that debt. And it's not likely to get much better any time soon. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the United States will run up more than $1 trillion in debt next year as well, and for years to come. And with entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare facing more than $100 trillion in future unfunded liabilities, we may look back on this level of debt as representing the "good old days."

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