Veronisque De Rugy, senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and my newest hero, warns in her latest article, “Starting in 2012, the cost of the debt as a percentage of GDP will explode from a mere 1.8 percent of GDP to more than 30 percent of GDP in 2082.”

She goes on to explain what this means for her daughter Juliette:

To give you an idea of what this means, if I get to retire at 65, in 2035, the cost of debt will have more than tripled from 1.8 to 7.5 percent of GDP. And by the time my daughter Juliette retires, in 2070 (assuming that she is still allowed to retire at 65) the cost of the debt will have reached 23.8 percent.

What does that mean in dollars?

To put these numbers in perspective, Edmund Andrews writes in the New York Times that this means an additional $500 billion a year in interest payments in less than 10 years, which is ‘more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.’

If you are worried about your child’s future, please get MAD and join Mothers Against Debt.  Be on the lookout for announcement from MAD.

Check out the Big Red Calculator, the only calculator that accommodates trillions and the official calculator of MAD.

 ”An unimaginative failure. That’s the best way to describe the results of the Long Term Fiscal Stability Commission. Instead of courageous, outside-the-box thinking that would improve state government and provide fiscal stability, the commission indulged the same tired argument that government has to tax and spend more.”

That’s how State Rep Cheri Gerou, Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway and I begin our opinion editorial about our experience on the Long Term Fiscal Stability Commission.  After 11 full days of meetings, the message was we must grow government nearly $1900 per year for every Coloradan.  Read the full text at the Independence Institute Web site.

There seems to be a lack of creative, outside the box thinking from our elected officials and leaders and taxpayers foot the bill.  The fiscal note for the commission was more than $27,000.

Who cares if Denver is facing a $120 budget shortfall.  They must have fine art — to the tune of $4 million.  Cut law enforcement.  Cut city services.  But hands off their art!   My colleague at the Independence Institute Todd Shepherd just exposed the real problem with how Denver funds art projects:

Eric Brown, spokesman for Mayor Hickenlooper, says the money slated for art projects can’t be re-routed or postponed because that funding is not discretionary and is not part of the general fund. “The public art program is set by ordinance from capital projects funding and would require City Council action to change the funding,” Brown said in an email. “Even if the art funding was eliminated, that money would remain in the construction budget for capital improvements and would not go back into the general fund.”

Greeley has the same type of requirement.  One percent of taxpayer-funded, capitol construction projects must go toward art — even at the expense of vital services.

During testimony in front of the Long Term Fiscal Stability Commission on which I sit, one gentleman predicted that July 2009 may mark the end of the “Great Recession“.  A headline in the Denver Post Sunday Business section (print edition) screams: “Optimism taking hold”…

…unless you are in Northern Colorado and have even as much as a dozen degrees of separation between you and New Frontier Bank.   According to the Greeley Tribune:

Iron Mountain is now the second domino to fall after the closure of New Frontier Bank in April, which many say artificially propped up Greeley’s economy with its liberal lending practices.

Iron Mountain, for example, owed about $6.75 million to New Frontier, now being liquidated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

‘What I’m hearing is that we’re not through the full ramifications of the New Frontier closure yet,’ said Larry Burkhardt, president of Upstate Colorado Economic Development. ‘I don’t know what else to anticipate, but I keep hearing that we’re going to see more consequences of that bank failure down the road.’

We are all hearing the same thing.  Last May I posted the following on my blog:

A land developer told me that the impending implosion of the commercial real estate market will make the recent devaluation in the residential market look like a “day at Disneyland.”

What I didn’t report (but maybe should have), is that the same land developer followed up that statement with a prediction that Iron Mountain Autoplex and John Chamberlain would be the first to go.  Even if it is someone else’s opinion, I admit to being a bit leery of naming specific businesses that may be in serious financial trouble without substantial financial data to back up the claim. Maybe it was wishful thinking — hoping it would not happen.

Not a week goes by that I don’t hear from a business owner worried about losing his or her livelihood.  That’s one of the things I hate about the bailouts.  Washington D.C. decides winners and losers, and No CO has been tagged with loser while having to pay for the bailouts of the winners.  No bailouts for small business nor community banks.  Note holders await the sale of their loans and hope the new buyers will work with them.   Some, formerly strung along by the FDIC, are now being strung along by the SBA (Small Business Administration).

Add the ugliness of NFB to Weld County’s unemployment rate of 8.6%, third highest in Colorado and a full percentage point above the state average, and optimism may be a little harder to find around here.

Funny note: In an earlier post, I predicted that the collapse of NFB would be the biggest issue of the 2010 election cycle.  I may be wrong.  I underestimated the passion of opposition to Obama Care.