Hold onto your shorts!

"The administration projects the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011. In fact, according to the estimates it made in August, the deficit will never drop below $739 billion over the next decade." AP Business writers Martin Crutsinger And Daniel Wagner

Hold onto your shorts, this means that in 10 years the national debt, which today is $11,986,954,033,520.56, will soar to about $22 TRILLION! That's almost double what it is now and at that level, interest alone on the national debt will be north of $700 Billion!

The interest that we will be required to pay will be not all that short of the $1.116 trillion collected in 2007 income taxes, the latest year those figures are available. Most calculate receipts for 2008 and following will be less, considering the current and near term future economic picture.

So, why should you "hold onto your shorts?" With that amount of federal debt, lender nations, i.e. the Japanese, Chinese and Saudi Arabia among others, will be getting very nervous (reality check, they already are starting to fidget) about purchasing our debt and the interest rate we consumers will pay will go through the roof.

Consider it an embedded tax, courtesy of the generosity of your elected officials who have yet to see a spending plan they didn't love, an election they didn't think they could buy.

Hope and Change? Let's hope, and vote, for change, a political sea change in Washington. Starting with my congressman and senators.

How 'bout yours?

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson