The parable tells us that a fool and his money are soon parted.  We are taught from childhood that absurd financial behavior will have consequences. 

True, not everyone gets the message, but the common instinct, even in children, is to be cautious with money.  The responsible realize that bank accounts run dry, loans come due and the job you have today may not be there tomorrow.

All of which makes it even more remarkable that the federal government has lost all sense of fiscal responsibility.  Consider these facts:

It took the country 200 years (1791-1982) to accrue a federal debt of $1 trillion.  Between 1982 and 2001 the debt rose to $5.7 trillion.  It doubled during the presidency of George Bush (2001-2009) to $10.6 trillion.

As of yesterday at 2 PM, the debt was $11,907,751, 071,362.30 and increasing at a rate of $3.8 billion a day. That’s $38,760 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The Office of Management and Budget estimates government spending will add another $9 trillion to the debt over the next decade.  That means, according to the Congressional Budget Office, our annual interest payment on the debt will rise from $177 billion now to $799 billion in 2019.

Now, here’s the really frightening part.  The speed at which the national debt is growing is increasing.  Economist Robert Samuelson reports that President Obama’s planned budgets “would increase the debt-to-GDP radio from 41 percent in 2008 to 82 percent in 2019.”

There’s no hint of any course change.  The Wall Street Journal reported last week that House Democrats were passing a dozen spending bills that increased domestic spending by 12 percent. 

Washington has already borrowed and spent—or is trying to spend--$787 billion on a federal stimulus package.  We’re considering a massive overall of the health care industry that will cost around $1 trillion over ten years.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continually repeats the mantra that the health care bill will meet President Obama’s requirement of not adding “one dime” to the deficit, a remarkable fiction that only the most gullible could swallow.

It feels as if we are caught in a cycle of spending that fuels itself.  Politicians exercise power by distributing money to constituents who then demand more services.  Politicians borrow from the future to pay for the ever growing list of benefits.

If the trend continues at current pace, at some point the strain on the nation’s finances will become too great.  Samuelson asked in a column this week if American might one day simply go broke.

“It’s still a very, very long shot,” Samuelson wrote, “but it’s no longer entirely unimaginable.” 

It’s more likely that Americans will be burdened with more taxes, higher interest rates and a sluggish economy.  There will be more ways that we will be parted from our money, even though we won’t have been the foolish ones.