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When the United States does not take in enough money to pay for our debts we have to borrow money. Right now our government is $14,290,000,000,000 in debt. It's a staggering amount that has sky-rocketed. In 2000, our debt was $6 trillion and in 2008 it was under $10 trillion.

Just like money that you and I might borrow from the bank, there is an interest charge. In this budget year, we will pay $205 billion in interest. By 2015, that number is expected to rise to $505 billion. This is taxpayer money that goes to nothing but paying the interest on our debt.

If someone asked you to pay full price for a roof repair now, on the promise they will do the repairs over the next ten years, you probably wouldn't take that offer.

Yet, that's what the President is asking Congress to do in the raising the debt ceiling. He wants immediate tax increases in exchange the promise of reduced spending over the next 10 years. I don't think that's a very good deal.

A lot of folks in Congress don't seem to grasp that we are spending money we do not have. It's like the old joke, ‘I can't be broke, because I still have checks left.' The government is still issuing checks, but they are also issuing IOU's for nearly 40 cents of every dollar spent.

Over the next month, one topic will dominate the news coming out of Washington. The debate about if and how to raise the debt ceiling will hit a fever pitch as the government runs up against a deadline.

In 1917, Congress capped the amount the government can legally borrow at $11.5 billion. The debt ceiling limit is a lot like your credit card limit. You can borrow only as much as your credit card limit allows and no more. The idea was to help control spending.

In the next week, millions of Americans will celebrate our Independence Day. The fourth day of July is the day that we celebrate our declaration of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. It was the last time America was ruled by a monarch.

In the place of a King or Queen, our forefathers created three separate branches of government. Each of those branches had checks and balances over the other two so that no one branch of government would become supreme.

Some days working with my colleagues reminds me of the story of a young man from Washington who decided he wanted to become a farmer. An older neighbor farmer was so excited to have a young man entering agriculture that he gave him 10 chickens to get started.

A few weeks later, the men saw one another and the young man said it wasn't going well. In fact all the chickens had died. The old farmer said, "Well something must be wrong." The young man said, "Yeah, I'm not sure if I am planting them too deep or too far apart."

In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson sent two men on an expedition to explore the interior of the country, then known as the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark set off from St. Louis up the Missouri River looking for a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean. They did not find it. This was not the last time that the Missouri River would confound our government.

Americans pause this week as we observe Memorial Day. No doubt many Americans will take advantage of the holiday to enjoy the outdoors. Some will attend cookouts with their neighbors; others will use the long weekend to visit family and friends. Americans work hard and they will no doubt enjoy a little extra time to spend with friends and family.