Global Debt Exploding, but G8 Leaders Fiddle with the Internet

Mike Brownfield / May 27, 2011

With Europe facing a massive fiscal mess and the United States buried under $14.3 trillion in debt, one might think that the leaders of the world’s eight major economies would get down to business to talk government overspending.

But as Heritage’s Jim Roberts writes in The Christian Science Monitor, President Barack Obama and G8 leaders are meeting in France to discuss, among other things, proposed global regulations for the Internet. But debt won’t be served up as a topic of conversation on the G8’s table, even though it’s a major problem in the U.S. and Europe:

One needn’t travel to France to get a clear view of this problem. Here in the US, for example, federal revenues will top $2 trillion this year, but federal spending will approach double that amount. Such reckless spending has set the stage for a battle royal between Democrats and Republicans over raising the national-debt ceiling . . .

Meanwhile international credit rating agencies are threatening to do the US Federal Reserve’s job: taking the punch bowl off the table and telling people the party is over. America’s vaunted “Triple AAA” credit rating is no longer a given in global finance. If the US loses it, federal borrowing – now more than 40 cents of every dollar spent – will become much more costly. (more…)