Opinion: America's national debt has crossed the 40 trillion-dollar mark. The milestone will not tear the roof down overnight, but it lays bare a fiscal architecture built around permanent borrowing: the house of credit cards. Successive administrations have cut taxes, promised more spending and pursued overseas expansion without agreeing on how to pay for it all.
For years, low borrowing costs concealed the weight the structure was carrying. Now rising interest bills are adding to the load. The edifice may remain precariously standing for the time being, yet Washington is trying to steady the house by piling on more cards. This is nothing but a self-defeating endeavor leading the house's collapse.
Produced by Xinhua Global Service■
