Budget repairs urgent

I applaud your Feb. 16 editorial titled “Federal debt won’t shrink by passing the buck.” However the situation is much worse than you have discussed.

You talk about a family where “In seven years, the interest on your credit cards will exceed your monthly mortgage …” The problem is that the U.S. debt is on a variable interest credit card and all the assumptions I have seen assume the interest rate is going to stay the same. That is not going to happen.

Ben Bernanke says he is trying to raise the rate of inflation, and my purchases say he is succeeding. He is then going to control how high it goes by raising interest rates. Nobody knows how high he will have to go to do that. If interest goes to 10 percent, interest on the present debt goes to $1.3 trillion per year, which is as much as Social Security and Medicare together. That could be in a year or two.

Digging ourselves out of that hole would be impossible. The time to balance the budget is now.

W. C. Rust

Wallace, Idaho