Just put it on my tab... again this month

As presidential candidates talk of "fiscal responsibility," you can expect to hear more about the impact of our growing national debt on future generations.

Today, we learned that our country set yet another record in February. The U.S. government reported that we set a record deficit in February, with federal spending exceeding revenue by $175.5 billion...in one month. In fact the runner-up budget deficit of $120 billion set in February of last year wasn't even a close contender. It shows what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it.

This brings our national debt (now called the "Total Public Debt," just to remind us who, exactly owes this money) to over $9.4 trillion. By the way, the U.S. Treasury now let's you see the total, updated daily, just for fun:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

It looks like President Bush has a real shot at breaking over the $10 trillion mark. No small achievement for one President, considering the sum total of debt accumulated by the 42 Presidents who served before him was only $5.7 trillion.

And President Clinton was no help during his 8 years in office. He never went over the $50 billion mark in a single month, and in most years didn't exceed the $170 billion mark...in a whole year. G.W. has had to do all the heavy lifting.

It's no coincidence that the value of the U.S. dollar sunk to a new all-time low this past week. It's part of the reason we have Canadians flooding the mega mall in Minneapolis, foreign nationals buying real estate in Aspen, and foreign governments ("sovereign wealth funds") buying major stakes in American corporations. We are "on sale."

It's difficult to explain numbers like this. It's easier just to say that the government spent all the taxes they collected from the 140 million or so taxpayers, and then added debt of an extra $1,250 for each...just last month.

It's just difficult to explain this to my 4 year old grand-daughter..whose generation will be left with the tab.