The Senate today
passed a measure temporary extending the federal government’s
borrowing authority through May. The president is expected to sign
it and the U.S. government is expected to keep borrowing. The U.S.
debt clock has the national
debt approaching $16.5 trillion and the federal government
spends about two dollars for every dollar it receives. The path
doesn’t seem sustainable at all, and once again
talk of default fills the air in Washington. And as Al-Qaeda

makes its latest threat against America, it’s worth rewinding
to a bin Laden tape released in 2004. From a
CNN article dated November 2, 2004:

The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full
transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden
in which the head of al Qaeda said his group’s goal is to force
America into bankruptcy…

“We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of
bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” bin
Laden said in the transcript.

Despite President Obama’s protestations that America paid for
two wars on a credit card, he hasn’t shown any desire to stop using
those cards. This week’s confirmation hearings for John Kerry
(concluded) and Chuck Hagel (ongoing) have so far displayed the
continuing popularity of an ever expanding interventionist foreign
policy among the political establishment. “The most significant
threat to our national security is our debt,” Admiral Mike Mullen
said in 2010. And while Politico
reports that the sentiment has gained a life of its own in
Washington, the complete lack of substantive effort by the
powers-that-be to rein in federal spending by any significant
measure betrays the lack of seriousness among our political class
in facing that threat. In fact, so long as budgets keep rising, the
threat can’t even be considered acknowledged, political posturing
to the contrary notwithstanding.

Spending vs. revenue since 1999: