Deficit shows now one ready to make tough decisions

Say you have a family income of $50,000, and owe $34,000 on your credit cards.

If you were wise, you'd be looking for some serious ways of cutting back on your expenses, increasing your income, and climbing out of that financial hole.

Many of us would be thinking about bankruptcy, but that option, always intended as a last resort, is more difficult because of recent changes in the law.

No, it would be much better to negotiate with your debtors, scale down, take on a part time job and plug the leaks in your bank account. That extra car might have to go. We might eat out less often, and perhaps move into a smaller home. Do we really need the full cable package? How about taking next summer's vacation a little closer to home?

That's what most of us, at least the wise among us, would do.

But, while most of us aren't in such dire straits personally, we're all part of just such a "family."

That's because we're citizens of the United States, which now owes $8.4 trillion -- that's $28,026 for every man, woman and child in the country, or $112,106 for a family of four.

According to deficit-watchdog group the Concord Coalition, that debt equals 68 percent of the nation's gross domestic product -- thus the credit card analogy.

Part of that debt is borrowed from other government accounts, such as Social Security, which will be under tremendous pressure as the Baby Boomers retire.

But more than half of the debt, nearly $4.8 trillion, is owed to private investors, including $2.1 trillion to foreign governments, institutions and citizens -- such as OPEC, China and Japan.

This year, the federal deficit is "only" $260 billion, which is actually lower than previous year.

So how much is the government tightening its belt?

Not much, judging from one small example.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission received a half-million dollar grant to help save 150 bugs.

The rare Salt Creek tiger beetle population has dropped to that level from about 600 a decade ago.

That's $3,333 per beetle.

The money will be used to preserve a 200 square mile area of salt marshes in Lancaster County, that developers have been draining and destroying as fast as they can build strip malls and suburbs.

Another $175,000 is going to buy a tract of land along the Platte River, where whooping cranes land, once in a while.

We don't know if any of that money will go toward training the birds to find their property.

Nebraska is only one of 27 states to be dividing up $67 million in grants for land acquisition and conservation planning for endangered and threatened species.

State and local governments are only doing their jobs when the seek and receive grants for projects such as preserving beetle habitat.

But it's obvious that the United States is far from ready to make the tough decisions that come with responsible financial management.