More doom and gloom

Herewith Part One of Martin Sullivan's take (similar to mine and that of pretty much everyone else who's looked at the problem) on the threat of an approaching U.S. fiscal collapse.

UPDATE: Also of related interest, a report by Thomas Hungerford of the Congressional Research Service estimates that extending all of the Bush tax cuts (along with AMT relief) would increase deficits over the next 10 years by $5 trillion. Allowing expiration of the top-bracket tax cuts, as proposed by the Obama Administration, would raise $678 billion over the 10-year period relative to extending everything, and thus would lower the 10-year cost of extension to "only" about $4.3 trillion.