A picture is worth 1,000 words: Doubling down on debt

This chart from the Wall Street Journal is a sobering glimpse into the future of our country:

WSJ adds some context in light of President Obama's newly released budget proposal:

President Obama is pitching his new budget proposal as a fiscal peace offering to Republicans, but the details suggest everyone should expect more conflict. The fiscal 2014 plan he released Wednesday is a very slightly modified version of his previous budgets that reduces the deficit by raising taxes and trading defense cuts for more domestic spending.

The real news is that his budget ratifies much of the spending increase of the first term and tries to lock it in. He wants the feds to spend $3.78 trillion next year ($11,944 per American), which would still be 22.2% of national output nearly four years into an economic recovery. Before the financial panic in 2008, the government was spending about $1 trillion less, or closer to $2.7 trillion a year and an average of 20% of GDP—and President Bush was no slouch as a spender himself.

Mr. Obama wants federal spending to grow to $4.45 trillion by 2018 fueled mostly by the exploding costs of his Affordable Care Act. This spending surge appears smaller than it is only because the government will bank large reductions in military spending as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars wind down. But unlike in the 1990s, this peace dividend will be spent.