One more time...HELP!

Robert Samuelson (NOT an economist) tells it like it is:

By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70 percent, up from 41 percent in 2008. That would be the highest since 1950 (80 percent)....

Except from crabby Republicans, these astonishing numbers have received little attention -- a tribute to Obama's Zen-like capacity to discourage serious criticism. Everyone's fixated on the present economic crisis, which explains and justifies big deficits (lost revenues, anti-recession spending) for a few years. Hardly anyone notes that huge deficits continue indefinitely. ...

Consider the extra debt as a proxy for political evasion. The president doesn't want to confront Americans with choices between lower spending and higher taxes -- or, given the existing deficits, perhaps less spending and more taxes. Except for talk, Obama hasn't done anything to reduce the expense of retiring baby boomers. He claims to be containing overall health costs, but he's actually proposing more government spending (see above).

So what's going to happen?

At best, the rising cost of the debt would intensify pressures to increase taxes, cut spending -- or create bigger, unsustainable deficits. ...

At worst, the burgeoning debt could trigger a future financial crisis. The danger is that "we won't be able to sell it (Treasury debt) at reasonable interest rates," says economist Rudy Penner, head of the CBO from 1983 to 1987. ...