evidence: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) – whose job it is to provide Congress with estimates for the cost of its policy decisions – predicts this year’s budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion. The budget deficit is essentially the amount that will be borrowed when Congress spends more than it takes in from taxes and other revenues. This is sort of like using credit cards to keep spending at a level that exceeds your income. CBO predicts the budget deficit will more than double to $2.85 trillion by 2033. In short, the nation’s credit card bills are adding up, and the debt is snowballing downhill. [...] As you know, when you borrow money, you almost always accumulate interest on that debt. Last year, Congress paid more than $475 billion in interest on the public debt. That amounted to more than was spent on education, transportation, or veterans services combined. Assuming no change to projected spending, in ten years, the government will spend $1.4 trillion on interest. To put this in perspective, in the last fiscal year, Congress spent approximately $1.5 trillion on all discretionary domestic and defense accounts.