A wakeup call on America's future debt

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"Unless offset by long-term spending reductions, tax cuts are not tax cuts at all. Instead, they simply shift the cost of current programs on to future taxpayers. That's so because if the government must borrow to spend now, the dollars spent must be repaid later.

If the Bush tax cuts were made permanent and the increase in federal spending tracks economic growth, the federal government would incur an additional $90,000 in debt for every American household by the year 2014, the author warns.

Peterson, long a Republican, blasts GOP supply-siders for their almost theological devotion to tax cuts as appropriate in almost any circumstance. And he offers this damning judgment: 'This administration and the Republican Congress have presided over the most reckless deterioration of America's finances in history.'

But he's also tough on the Democrats for a desire to expand spending and benefits without careful consideration of the long-term cost. "