State of Denial

Barack Obama addressed the country for the third State of the Union address of his Presidency this week. In broad terms, he talked mostly about innovation, education and jobs. To be fair, he also briefly touched on the deficit, the two wars we are fighting and unity. But because so much emphasis was put on education, it sounded more like an address to a local PTA and not an SOTU speech. The financial problems the country is facing now are so enormous it was startling they were glossed over or not mentioned at all.

The country is deeply in debt, and it will sink deeper when Congress raises the debt ceiling in a few months. Experts say it has to be expanded by a trillion dollars a year for the foreseeable future; otherwise, the U.S. will default on its commitments. This is a minimum of $1,000 billion of new debt ($1 trillion) added on top of the record national debt of $14.3 trillion. The American people deserve, at least, an explanation and a plan on reducing it. By the way, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced yesterday this year’s deficit will hit an eye popping $1.5 trillion (another record), which means we will borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend.

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