Federal government cannot stop spending.

• Position: National Debt

See if you can identify Company X by its spending habits. In 2008, its Fiscal Year net operating costs were one trillion dollars. Just for perspective, this number is triple that of its 2007 costs. Its debt comes in at 10.7 trillion dollars, not counting its suggested unfunded liabilities that now exceed 43 trillion dollars. That means the company is in the hole for at least 53 trillion dollars. If you think this company is in big trouble, you are right--and in case you had not figured it out--Company X also is known as the U.S. government, and the above figures do not even include Pres. Barack Obama's pork-laden rescue package.

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"Given the current numbers and projections, the government looks like a company no reasonable person would ever dream of investing in," indicates Addison Wiggins, coauthor of I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt. "'The 2008 Financial Report of the U.S. Government' is chock-full of scary numbers."

* Over the next 25 years, the share of the population aged 65 and older is forecast to jump from 12% to 20% (effectively increasing anticipated expenditures), while the share of the nation's population that is working and paying taxes (anticipated revenue) will decrease from 60% to approximately 55%.

* Medicare spending has grown at more than one-and-a-half times the overall rate of economic expansion during the last four decades, and the Medicare Trustees assume that expenditures will continue to outpace overall economic growth in the future.

* Under current law, 30 years from now, government revenues will be sufficient to cover approximately half of all anticipated expenditures.

All of these factors will place strains on the government's spending and add to the national debt, until 2080, when government revenue only will cover the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

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