Alarming Numbers

Here are some numbers that put into perspective the sorry state of the federal government and our fiscal predicament:

Current National Debt: $5.4 trillion

Current Federal Deficit: $407 billion

Combined bailouts (to date): $1.6 trillion

Eight years of Wars: $790 billion

Social Security Payments (2008): $612 billion

Medicare (2008): $454 billion

Medicaid (2008): $202 billion

Interest on the National Debt (2008): $244 billion

Earmarks (2008): $16.5 billion

For all the talk about the ravages of adding on more debt and leverage, the government has no other choice but to take out the credit card so that taxpayers will incur even more staggering debt service costs in the future--$244 billion will look good next year.

And oh yeah, eliminating earmarks will make a major difference in the sea of red ink.