Americans are now tasting the sour fruits of unaffordable mortgages: foreclosure, bankruptcy, falling markets. The nation, too, is staring at overwhelming debt, made worse by this week’s forecast of a whopper federal deficit. Washington mustn’t let this burden rise, for the sake of global financial markets and future US generations.

It’s true that the $482 billion deficit chasm estimated for fiscal year 2009 doesn’t look so deep when taken as a percentage of the overall economy – 3.3 percent of gross domestic product compared to the 1983 nadir of about 6 percent.

But this is just one “mortgage” that the federal government (i.e., taxpayers) must meet. It owes on all the deficits it has accumulated over the years (the national debt), and it has jumbo liabilities to come in the form of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Adding all those liabilities together, the government has dug itself into a $53 trillion fiscal hole – the equivalent of $175,000 per person living in the United States. If the White House and Congress continue to follow the do-nothing plan, in another 30 years or so the federal government will spend more than twice as much as it raises in taxes.

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