You know it's bad when...

Even the San Francisco Examiner is getting it. (Hat tip T-19)

This is hardly news to anyone who has been paying attention for the last 10 years or more. Successive administrations and Congresses of both political parties have been playing fast and loose with the fiscal well being of the country. Neither party has had the courage to be honest with the American people. And as far as I can tell that has not changed. The simple truth is that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

For decades we have been living on the national credit card. We have been fudging the books to make the debt look smaller than it really is. (Hint: It’s not $12 Trillion. It’s somewhere between $60-100 Trillion if you calculate entitlements that we have made promises for without money.)

We have been running the public Treasury like a giant ponzi scheme. It’s as if Bernie Madoff has been the Secretary of the Treasury for each administration going back at least to the 1980’s. We borrow money and spend it frivolously. When the bill is due we borrow more money, and pay just enough to cover the interest on the existing debt and then blow the rest frivolously. And we keep repeating this over and over. And the book keeping in Washington, had they been subject to the kind of accounting standards mandated for private businesses, would have gotten all of our former presidents and most members of Congress sent to prison for fraud.

I think every President and member of Congress going back to the 80’s has known what was going on. And I think they all said a quick prayer every night before bed to the effect of “Dear God, please let me be out of office before this all blows up.”

Well now that day has finally come. The party is over. The bar is closing down. And the tab is due.