Here's an exercise everyone should do for themselves. I'm not the first, but here's what I just calculated, using just U.S. Government data and a wealth report by Capgemini & Merrill Lynch.

Current national debt is $11 Trillion, or $36 Thousand per American.

Fortunately our plan is to get the rich to shoulder the burden. Before the current economic downturn, there were about 3.1 million millionaires in America. So they could each pitch in $3.6 million and pay this off today. Oops, some millionaires “only” have $1 million, so that won't work. Before you get too spun-up over these millionaires, do a search for: The Millionaire Next Door. You may be surprised at what you find.

OK, we tax income, not wealth and there were 3.8 million tax returns reporting over $200,000 gross income in 2006, so they could divide our current debt and each pay just $2.8 million. Of course if you make “just” $200,000 you'd have to pay all of your income in taxes for 14 years to pay your share. Hmm...

Don't forget, while these rich folks are paying off the debt, the rest of us will be paying for the actual cost of running our government. Without their help, we'll all have to pay a bunch more too.

You may have noticed I've chosen to ignore deficit spending projections for the next decade, but our 2012 national debt projection of over $16 Trillion max'ed out my calculator, sorry.

I'm no Tim Geithner, but it appears to me that even a strong economic recovery would not overcome this problem, and if we continue to grow our debt at this rate can we possibly even have a recovery? Clearly, this spending and taxing strategy can't work.

We need a new plan.

Cheers,
Mr. Huey