“It has been long understood that our federal government is going deeper into debt, consistently raising the debt ceiling and demonstrating no fiscal restraint. In recent years, debt ceiling increases have been placed in ‘must pass’ legislation as a means to guarantee that Republicans as well as Democrats would vote for them when Congress was under Republican control. We also know our nation’s ‘negative savings rate’ reflects the habits of private citizens, showing those habits to be not tremendously different than the habits of the public sector. Yet, the signs of decline are becoming ever more apparent. So apparent, in fact, that it seems unlikely that bailouts or other gimmicks will have even short-term success.” (10/16/08)