Maxing out the credit card: If you saw any Republican campaign commercials, you probably got the idea that our national debt is out of control.

That's because our national debt is out of control. Americans now collectively owe $16 trillion, and the figure is skyrocketing. We are adding to the debt by more than $1 trillion a year, and have been since the Great Recession hit.

Does anyone think the loser or the winner of this presidential election will do anything about this?

Does anyone have any plan for this? We owe more than $1 trillion to China alone. China! Does anyone really think today's corporate journalism is going to be sufficiently tough on this nation, or its human-rights violations, when we already owe them that much money, and will need to borrow more?

More, that is, so that we can keep on buying more gadgets, conspicuously consuming our little wallets out.

Borrowing most of all, so nobody who is really well off has to pay anything like their fair share of taxes. Meanwhile, your roads and bridges and schools are still falling apart.

The election is over. We know who our next leaders will be. So when — and how — are we going to demand they do something about any or all of this?

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: Remember Michael Brown, the bumbling incompetent who President Dubya put in charge of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency?

He was the guy who totally blew the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and who had to be fired weeks later, despite the Shrub's famous clueless comment "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie," uttered while victims were still dying.

Well, Brownie's back. Last week he dared to criticize President Obama for moving to be prepared for Hurricane Sandy even before it hit.

"Why did he jump on this so quickly ... why was this so quick?" he asked in an interview with Denver's Westword. Then, thinking hard, the former Arabian horse judge furrowed his brow. "My guess is, he wants to get ahead of it. He doesn't want anybody to accuse him of not being on top of it or not paying attention..." Bingo. Brownie knows all about that.

Yessiree, it's a yuck-a-minute with the boys from Bush. And if the Mittster is now president-elect, why, there's no telling what job Brownie might be appointed to next!

Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com.

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