A trust-manager friend of mine described a near crisis from a few years ago. It seems, with a flourishing economy and several years of balanced budgets America might be headed towards a debt-free future. You may remember those days when the progressive Democrat was in the White House. The concern was where would trust managers find high-quality well-backed debt when the United States Government stopped issuing Treasury Bills. It would be difficult to find a replacement for Treasury Bills that offered the same sort of security and guaranteed return.

The potential crisis was averted when America, well the Supreme Court but that's another tale, elected a conserviative Republican to the White House. George W. Bush came to town to bring a solid conservative approach to governing. Somewhere along the line though things got mixed up. The larger government now has a lot more debt than it did under any previous administration. The ultimate irony of the photo is that the photo-op came on a tour to promote plans to save Social Security.

Let's see, the same administration that is helping to drive the country further into debt is going to save Social Security, which doesn't have huge problems, while it ignores the Medicare crisis. I guess the only solace might be that while saving Social Security from its non-crisis the government won't be finding any ways to interfere in the private lives of Americans.... well maybe.... Then again the Senate is attempting to implement some major changes to the balance of power between the branches of government. Then again the folks who wrote The Constitution were just the founding fathers of a great democracy.