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Editorial: Debt a threat, too

President Obama is in a tight spot. Economists tell him spending is necessary to grow the economy, but that just deepens already huge deficits that also threaten the country's future.

So, what to do? Obama's new budget tells the tale. His proposed $3.8 trillion in spending puts the nation on course for deficits totaling more than $5 trillion over the next five years.

That's staggering. Recession or not, the country can't afford that level of spending. The federal government now borrows one-third of all the money it spends.

No household could survive very long like that. On this pace, interest payments on the national debt alone will reach $840 billion in 2020. That sum is more than the government is projected to spend in the same year on all discretionary domestic programs not related to security.

The president is correct in pointing out that he faced enormous deficits when he walked in the door. Republican lawmakers now aghast at these deficits were largely silent while they were running up the red ink themselves.

More . . .

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