Disturbing thought of the... week? month? #!%@$ century??

I tend to enjoy sports a lot. I also enjoy politics and intellectual insight into the many facets of the world. Rarely are these two portions of my brain engaged at the same time, but Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on ESPN.com has been doing so successfully for a long while now and is one of my most favoritest (yes, that's a word - in my world, at least :P ) reads of the week during football season. I may not agree with some of the things he says, but he at least makes me think about things a little more.

In his latest column, he put the recent economic turmoil and the government's response to it into terms that struck a chord with me. So I'm sharing it with you now:

Last week, TMQ asked why no one was paying attention to the fact that the national debt ceiling was quietly raised by $800 billion during the summer. Well, toss that column: The White House just asked the national debt ceiling be raised another $700 billion, for the proposed financial-sector bailout. If that happens, in 2008 alone, $1.5 trillion will have been added to the national debt: every penny borrowed from your children and their children. Stated in today's dollars, in 1979 the entire national debt was $1.5 trillion. George W. Bush and Congress have in a single year added an amount equal to the entire national debt one generation ago. And the year's not over!

It took the United States 209 years, from the founding of the republic till 1998, to compile the first $5 trillion in national debt. In the decade since, $6 trillion in debt has been added. This means the United States has borrowed more money in the past decade than in all our previous history combined. Almost all the borrowing has been under the direction of George W. Bush -- at this point Bush makes Kenneth Lay seem like a paragon of fiscal caution. Democrats deserve ample blame, too. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, have never met a bailout they didn't like: Harry and Nancy just can't wait to spend your children's money. Six trillion dollars borrowed in a single decade and $1.5 trillion borrowed in 2008 alone. Charles Ponzi would be embarrassed.

If you ever needed more reason to feel sickened by our current state of affairs, there it is. I'm going to go cry while looking at my 401k statement again now.