"Jack Spratt (a Republican) could eat no fat, His wife (a Democrat) could eat no lean; And so between the two of them, They licked the platter clean." And then they took their plate to the public and said: Fill it up again, your children can afford it. You don't want to see us suffer do you? My God, the stock market will crash, people waiting for their regular handouts will starve, and the world will know it's your default.

Every politician inside the Beltway believes that the national debt ceiling should be raised. They just want to argue about how to do it, quietly or with fanfare. Play a little politics here and there in an election year.

The republicans want their plate filled with 750 billion calories. The democrats are willing to give them 450 billion so they'll have to come back, hungry again, just before the 2004 presidential elections.

It's Wednesday the 26th now, and the scare story is that if something doesn't happen before the end of the month, just a few days away, Jack and his wife will "hit the wall" as our Treasurer claims.

I predict that they'll raise the debt limit by some $150-to-$300 billion, just enough to carry them safely beyond the November elections and into the next fiscal year when there are no elections. They'll play it safe on the theory that they can duke it out next time when there's not so much at stake. A temporary reprieve. For now, Jack and his wife will just have to get along with a snack.

But they really don't even have to go that far. They could do nothing at all because the only real crisis they're facing is paying entitlements like the Social Security Trust Fund some $57 billion in interest that's due.

This so-called "interest payment" doesn't require any cash at all—nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada, squat, the big goose egg. All they do is hand the debit black hole accounts (20 of them) more bogus bonds, no real money involved, but piling more debt on top of debt. And they could theoretically make this semi-annual interest payment at any time before the close of their fiscal year on September thirtieth.

In fact, the government could do us all a great favor by simply forgetting about these interest payments that pile more debt on top of debt for the public to pay some day. We need them like we need another hole in the head.

It's all part of the double billing, double bookkeeping, Enron style Pay-It-Again Sam scam—the phony pretense of "borrowing" entitlement surpluses that the government plays. The game where they play what Thomas Sowell correctly calls pretending that they can both spend and save the same money. A childish and ridiculous rip-off they've been getting away with for at least twenty years.

Is it any wonder that American corporations have learned to hide debt, employ the same sort of "on" and "off" budget double bookkeeping? What's the crime when you've got the nation's lawmakers as teachers?

The federal government plays with the English language when they divide the national debt into two parts—Public Debt and Intragovernmental Debt. For all practical purposes, these two sides are truly (1) Investor debt, where money is loaned the government under contract, and (2) Entitlement debt that is piled up by stealing Social Security and other entitlement surpluses by bucket loads. By calling the latter "Intragovernmental" the scam artists hope taxpayers will believe that one department owes another and can redeem the debt with something other than taxpayer money.

The latter is a crime because, by their own rules, entitlement money is not supposed to be spent elsewhere. But you don't hear the word "entitlement" bandied about by politicians nowadays, do you? And "Intragovernmental" is one of those Greenspeak tongue twisters on a subject politicians want to avoid anyway.

For instance, when politicians talk about deficits they talk only about Investor Debt or what they call Public Debt. This is also the only place the government could possibly risk default.

They never mention deficits incurred by running up the Entitlement side of the national debt, but then who's going to complain if they don't give us more bogus bonds for our children and grandchildren to pay off?

As of Monday, June 24, 2002, the Investor side of the national debt has gone up $90.4 billion this year, fiscal 2002. The Entitlement side has gone up $120.7 billion and the entire national debt has risen $211.1 billion. That’s all real deficit folks, but you will not hear about it from politicians or the Mayberry news services.

Most notably, this is the first time in four years that the Investor side of the national debt has increased. The first time in four years we've added new debt by borrowing more from investors than was necessary merely to replace maturing securities. And this new borrowing only occurred up until May 17, 2002 when we hit the debt ceiling.

Since May 17, for the last 40 days, the national debt has been held at $25 million under the debt ceiling. Insofar as borrowing from Investors goes, this is the same thing we did for four years in a row. But it's not what we've ever done with stealing or "borrowing" from entitlements like Social Security.

In other words, we could continue not borrowing additional money from investors, the honest side of the national debt. After 40 days, this is obvious, isn't it?

Without raising the debt limit, the government cannot continue its scam of ripping-off your surplus Social Security and other entitlement money. At least, they couldn't do it and continue the Enron style "borrowing" scam they've fabricated. They could still take the money and run, but then they wouldn't be fooling anyone any more.

This is the reason for the crisis. It has nothing to do with default. It's all so they can continue robbing your retirement and other entitlement money. Spell m-a-l-f-e-a-s-a-n-c-e.

Let's hope the impasse continues through the end of the month so their criminal activity will be even more obvious. By the time you read this we should know whether Jack and his wife got their snack.