Show me the money

When a couple applies for a home loan, they are often denied because one or both parties has a poor credit score. You know, the whole concept behind the annoying “FreeCreditReport.com” jingles that have slowly taken over every single channel I watch. 

While these commercials are utterly annoying, they do make their point: If you screw up your credit history, your monetary future will be plagued.

United States of America, take heed.

I say this not as a threat to our government, but rather in hope that it realizes this whole borrowing-money-we-don’t-have-the-capability-to-pay-back affects every American.

If a person hits their credit limit, that’s it. They are done buying on credit until they can pay their bill. Now, imagine having a credit card bill of $11.7 trillion.

Imagine being able to fathom how much $11.7 trillion actually is. 

And we appear to just be getting started.

To put this into perspective, USA Today reports that President Bush left an approximately $400 billion budget deficit. Not good.

So far, “the government has spent $530 billion more this year than it did last year, a number that includes $169 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), $125 billion for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $83 billion to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” according to Time Magazine.

And don’t forget about this whole health-care-reform business; the House bill now has a projected price tag of more than $1 trillion.

CBS News said that, “although President Obama and congressional leaders have been adamant that health care reform will be financed through savings on existing programs or new revenue, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House proposal would actually increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years.”

Clearly, we are dealing with unprecedented mass deficits that will surely stick around for a while.

So, what do we have to look forward to as Obama continues to spend, tax and borrow into oblivion?

A weakening of the U.S. dollar is inevitable. Already, from March to September, the dollar’s value has fallen nearly 15 percent compared to the euro.

Furthermore, we can anticipate increased interest rates for both the government as well as individuals and businesses and, as a result, less spending and investments.
And, economics aside, let’s not forget the political pressure that can escalate with debt holders. We are beholden to China, a communist state, because we simply cannot live within our means. 

What scares me more than this, however, is that if we actually needed the money for some urgent global disaster, it’ll be hard to come by because our “international credit card” is far past being maxed out. 

Perhaps the one thing we have to look forward to as a result of all of this spending and resulting debt are the 2010 elections.

Maybe fed up, fiscally responsible Americans can vote some fiscally responsible representatives into office and remove these tax-and-spend (and borrow) liberals who’ve shown no consideration for America’s economic future.

Here’s to hoping.