Someone Needs to Take Away Uncle Sam's Credit Cards
-- September 18, 2003

Everyone knows consumers have a debt problem. They're mortgaged to the hilt and they charge way too much on their credit cards. But judging from the latest figures, Uncle Sam is in even worse shape than your average mall patron.

The U.S. Treasury said it ran a deficit of more than $76 BILLION in August. That was up from $54.2 billion a month earlier. What's more, the deficit for the first 11 months of fiscal 2003 totaled $400 billion — DOUBLE what it was this time last year.

These disturbing debt figures haven't ravaged the bond market ... yet. But it's only a matter of time. You can't just borrow your problems away and never expect to pay the piper via higher interest rates. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund just warned that higher deficits are leading to a "substantial deterioration" of the US fiscal position and may derail the tentative economic recovery. We couldn't agree more.