Drive down debt, or we will be driven down

In the 1950s, a popular mantra was, “As General Motors goes, so goes the nation.” Well, the company fell into bankruptcy in 2008. The federal government’s debt ceiling is $12.4 trillion and soon will grow by $1.9 trillion as a spineless Congress merely increases the limit rather than taking the substantive steps necessary to pare down debt in 2010.

With anticipated federal deficits in excess of $1.3 trillion annually until 2013, and $700 billion deficits each year thereafter, by 2019, the federal government’s debt will be more than $20 trillion. This amount does not include Medicare’s unfunded liabilities by 2013 or Social Security Trust Fund bonds, due for payment in 2018.

The economy will not grow dramatically as it did in the post-World War II environment because both employment and the housing market will remain soft for the next decade. The future for America is this: Federal and various state government bankruptcies will prevail with a vengeance as China rises to the position of the world’s new and only superpower within 10 years.

By 2020 America, the once-great power of the world will be nothing more than a second-rate, bankrupt nation that, having defaulted on its debt obligation to international and domestic interests, has a hyperinflationary problem equal to that ofGermany’s Weimar Republic before the rise of Adolf Hitler.

EARL BEAL

Terre Haute, Ind.