The two most visible figures in the U.S. debt crisis, House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama, are busy playing 2012 politics. So busy that they're overlooking four inconvenient truths:
• Our federal government isn't merely stuck with almost $15 trillion in debt. That debt grows by some $4 billion a day or, if this is easier to grasp, some $3 million every minute.
• One continent to the east, Greece and a cluster of other nations that foolishly chose not to keep their debt loads sustainable are edging closer to default. Remember, one ratings agency already has downgraded U.S. creditworthiness -- and, this summer, the prospect of more downgrades briefly united our political class around a deal to avoid that fate.
• That slashing of U.S. deficits has to include substantial constraints on future entitlement spending -- the biggest driver in the federal budget -- as well as higher revenues. Our oft-stated preference: a spending-cuts-to-higher-revenues ratio of 3 or 4 to 1.
• The most inconvenient truth for Washington pols: The American people expect members of Congress and the president to solve this unfolding crisis before it further dims America's economic future.
Instead of solutions, though, citizens get election-cycle rhetoric.
Boehner didn't help move Washington and the nation closer to a meaningful deficits deal with his insistence that tax increases cannot be part of it.
Nor did Obama help with his one-upmanship of Boehner's irresponsible ultimatum: The president said he will veto any bill that lowers Medicare benefits but doesn't raise taxes on the wealthy.
