The State of the Union -- and Its Debt

The financial state of the union is a mess. That's not a surprise. It's in the headlines -- from the mortgage crisis to the wild gyrations of the stock market. Surely President Bush's State of the Union address will touch on those financial issues.

But will the president tell the truth, the whole truth, about the numbers and the extent of our nation's financial woes over the long run? Will he acknowledge the true cost of the emergency economic-stimulus package now being worked out by Congress?

The Institute for Truth in Accounting is determined that the real numbers will not only be spoken and written, but considered by all the candidates running for office this year. This nonprofit, nonpartisan institute has created a Web site to bring the financial facts to the public attention.

Prominently displayed on the home page are two running series of numbers that increase almost faster than the eye can capture. The first is the "official" National Debt, which was $9,193,222,137,000.00 at the instant I checked. (That's the figure taken from the Treasury Department's Web site.) The number is growing by $1 million every minute! ...