Federal Debt = Monetary Terrorism

Okay, the title may be an exaggeration, but a recent Gallup Poll (hat tip Naked Capitalism) shows how the concerns over the growing level of federal debt has moved to the forefront and to a similar level by quantity of people (perhaps not level among them) to terrorism. Yves details the opportunity for change this brings:

It would appear the ground has been laid rather effectively for (among other things) an assault on Social Security and Medicare. As we have pointed out before, Social Security is not under any immediate stress, and it would take only some minor tweaks to alleviate the (well off in the future) strains. And contrary to popular perception, the reason Medicare spending will get out of hand is due to projected medical cost escalation, not demographics.