THE GOVERNMENT is so far in debt that our children have decided that there are no consequences as they slide further and further into debt themselves.

Who’s going to bail out our kids, their parents, of course! The government may help as well. On both you can rely! Right?

Who’s going to bail out the government, who knows!

We are becoming a debt ridden society and there appears to be no way to repair it.

We used to be ashamed to be in debt. Now, it has become a law of nature.

The mantra we are taught is that we have to help people, take care of them, regardless of the fiscal consequences of doing it. It’s an emotional argument.

I listened with some intensity to the speeches last week in the House of Representatives about the health care bill that the President signed into law early last week.

The Democrats, almost to a number, pointed to individuals who were failed by the present system. There were stories that tore at your heart and nearly all of the arguments were emotionally charged.

On the other hand, just as universally, the Republican lawmakers argued that the nation just couldn’t afford the cost of the plan. Their argument was almost always fiscally based, except, of course, for the gnawing abortion issue that seemed to pervade both sides of the isle.

Even though most of us didn’t know it, the Democratic leadership didn’t have the votes to pass the bill without the antiabortion holdouts and only when the President in a last minute effort to appease them, came racing forward with a solution, did the anti-abortion Democrats change their mind and vote for the bill. Those four votes were all that were necessary to make the magic 216 votes necessary for passage.

I don’t think that anyone questions that we need a health care overhaul. The question is who’s going to pay for it?

Recent polls suggest that the health care bill is most popular among young people. They have been, to a great extent, indoctrinated in the belief that they will always have a safety net that will catch them regardless of the situation.

It’s not really personal for them because most young people don’t use health care anyway. The appeal for them is that we have to help people who can’t help themselves.

Debt does not seem to bother them at all.

It’s the idea that I don’t have to pay my own way because between parents and the government, they’ll take care of me.

Now, I must confess that this concept is not universal among the young but it is a trend that has become dangerous and has led to more than one raid on parent’s retirement savings.

While the parents of many of the younger crowd have spent years assembling their retirement nest egg and keeping it safely tucked away in the family “lock box” – a network of 401ks, IRAs, and other savings vehicles – their children, with the government as a mentor, have been racking up debt.

Many of those debt-ridden kids are returning home either moving back in with the parents and/or raiding the family lock box, essentially treating it like a checking account to handle their debt.

“We’re seeing an alarming trend of [children] in deep debt looking to their parents to help them dig out of it,” said Tom Sedoric, Managing Director of the Sedoric Group at Wells Fargo Advisors.

“Sometimes kids are faced with a situation that is out of their control, such as a job loss or divorce, but many times these [grown children] are living beyond their means and expecting their parents to step in when the going gets tough.”

The impact of these parents bailing out their kids with funds from the family lock box can be big. The “borrowed” money is no longer gaining interest and compounding and these requests are rarely paid back – potentially affecting parents’ plans of financial security.

I know personally of families living right here in Northfield who have put a mortgage on their free and clear home to give their kids the money to buy a home for themselves with no hope of ever getting any of the money back. And they did it without considering that they may need that money themselves later on for long term care or some other unforeseen need.

“It’s a gut reaction for a parent to help a child in need, but it is not often a well thought out decision,” said Mr. Sedoric. “What the children need to realize is even the most conservative and wisest of parents have been affected by the economic downturn, while parents need to realize that one request may likely be followed by another dip into the bank of mom and dad.”

A friend of mine told me recently, “I hate to answer the telephone any more because I just know it’ll be one of our children needing money.”

Will taking action and helping, help allow your children to continue to make poor financial decisions? Or can the assistance be structured to empower the children to rebuild their financial independence?

Will the children cracking the family lock box create more difficulties for the parents while not solving the core issues of their financial crisis?

“Families tend to handle these extraordinarily emotional and difficult situations best when they have the most information at hand,” said Mr. Sedoric. “Perspective is a hard thing to come by when your children are in need.”

Likewise, the government, the one who should be setting an example for all of us, continues to spend like a steam engine racing down the track out of control.

Just as with the children, the emotional issue seems to propel the spending. “We have to help” is the chorus we hear.

I see television commercials touting gold sales talking about our “10 trillion dollar debt” – those commercials were only made a few months ago but now the government debt has surpassed 12 trillion and is climbing every day as more and more is spent on more and more new programs to help people.

Has this become a symptom of our times?

Just before the House of Representatives passed the Democrat’s sweeping health care legislation, the Rasmussen poll reported that 41 percent of voters nationwide favored the legislation while 54 percent were opposed.

For several months, voters over 65 have been more opposed to the health care plan than younger adults. Seniors use the health care system more than anyone else.

Sixty percent of likely voters polled last week believe the new law will increase the federal budget deficit.

Only 19 percent disagree and say it will not, while twelve percent think the new law will have no impact on the deficit.

Throughout the legislative debate, advocates of the reform expressed frustration about the fact that voters believe it will increase the deficit.

Many, including the President, pointed to Congressional Budget Office projections to argue that the plan will actually reduce the deficit.

However, voters are skeptical of the official government projection, and 81 percent believe the actual cost of the program will be higher than projected.

Voters have consistently said that reducing the federal budget deficit is a higher priority than health care reform.

While some aspects of the new health care law are popular, a majority of voters oppose the measures required to cover the nearly one trillion dollars in additional spending called for over the next decade. Fifty-six percent oppose the reductions in Medicare spending, a figure that includes 70 percent of those over 65.

I have no idea how we can ever get our children to believe that they need to spend less than they make, setting some aside for a rainy day, while the government thinks that it can just go on helping people forever regardless of the fiscal consequences of doing it. Monkey see, monkey do. It’s a sad state of affairs.