It is hard to believe the U.S. is well on its way to bankruptcy. It won’t happen today or tomorrow, but it is inevitable given the insatiable spending by politicians on both sides of the aisle.  On Sept. 30, the national debt surpassed $10 trillion and already had added another $294-billion by Oct. 10. If one adds unfunded obligations for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and other federal programs, the total is closer to $59.1 trillion.

This doesn’t seem to bother Congress or the President, as they and the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve save the nation with an almost $1-trillion bailout for distressed lenders, sweetened with many tax breaks. The spending is so lush that Congress had to raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion from $10.6 trillion. Why even bother?

The public seems to get little in return, and it will become increasingly difficult to help taxpayers as debt service eats up more of the economy and tax revenue. The bailout now is called a “buy in,” in a futile attempt to placate a furious public. It is an “investment,” say Congress, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Banks are horrified that the government wants an equity interest in their organizations, but little is said about how much equity taxpayers will get for their many billions of investment or how much the government will pay for the distressed assets it has pledged to buy.

Those assets are worth only what they will fetch on the open market. An asset is garbage when no one else wants to buy it, and the price should be set accordingly. Similarly, battered bank stocks should be priced at the close of business on Oct. 3, the day the bailout was signed by President Bush, so speculators don’t reap any gains that the American public should be collecting.

The dueling presidential candidates are contributing to the problem by promising tax cuts the nation can no longer afford. On Oct. 14, John McCain proposed a $52.5-billion plan that would eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits, cut the capital gains tax in half for two years and lower the tax on funds withdrawn from retirement accounts.

Barrack Obama the day before suggested a tax cut of $500 for individuals and $1,000 for working couples; cuts for seniors, homeowners, the uninsured and families sending a child to college; elimination of capital gains for small businesses; and reduced corporate taxes for firms that create jobs.

“A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” is what Herbert Hoover promised in his 1928 campaign. He did not get very far, nor will we, unless we start the hard work of keeping America out of bankruptcy.