Questions worth asking

Sometimes the most obvious questions never get asked. Though many people are wondering about something, they never get up the nerve to ask. After all, look at all the competent, knowledgeable people who are just going along with it -- whatever it is.

Few of us are willing to be the child who notes that the emperor is naked. Today, it seems that the emperor has a huge walk-in closet full of thousands of outfits made of the same special material. I'm sure I've got plenty of blind spots, but I want to ask the penetrating questions, especially about our culture and government.

One might naively ask, for example, How are we going to pay the U.S. national debt? I think we are pushing $14 trillion now. It seems to increase about a trillion every month. Maybe a better question is, Do we ever intend to pay our national debt?

If we are ever going to begin to pay the debt, we will eventually have to stop spending more than we take in. Even if we never ran another deficit, we would have a crushing burden in interest payments alone. But eliminating deficits must come before we can start paying off the debt. I can only think of one year when the government had a budget surplus. Wonder where that money went...

Another question is, What will happen if we decide not to pay our debt? That's a scary thought, but something we have to consider. Would it be easier to default on the debt or pay it? What are the consequences of these choices?

Meanwhile, we are funding studies of drunken mice. Really.