The Congressional Budget Office says the government is on track for another $1 trillion deficit year. That's the bad news. Worse is that most of it goes to programs that increase government dependency. According to the CBO, deficits in just the first three months of this fiscal year already add up to $293 billion. Which means that, despite Obama's massive tax hikes, deficits will likely top $1 trillion for the fifth year in a row, and Obama will have added $7.5 trillion to the nation's debt since taking office. The problem isn't just that the country is borrowing too much. It's that Washington is spending too much on programs that increase dependency on government. A new Heritage Foundation study finds that the number of people getting federal benefit checks â through Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, subsidized housing, tuition aid or countless other entitlement programs â has shot up 62% since 1988. That's more than twice the rate of population growth. As a result, more than four in 10 Americans are dependent on the federal government for financial help of one sort or another. Heritage also found that the amount spent on these programs has climbed 180% since 1988, after adjusting for inflation. So not only are more people in line for federal benefits, but they're also each getting bigger payments. Which explains why an incredible 70% of federal spending is comprised simply of cutting checks to people. These trends don't even count ObamaCare, which will create a vast new class of government dependents. More than 20 million families will get subsidized insurance through the so-called insurance exchanges, the Congressional Budget Office predicts, and an additional 11 million will end up on Medicaid. Despite the fact that these dependency-creating programs are driving the country's massive long-term debt crisis, the public has little interest in cutting any of them. Our IBD/TIPP poll found that just 19% approve of cutting Medicare and just 23% support cuts to Social Security. For Obama and his liberal friends, this is all a welcome development, one that ensures a permanently massive central government, which is why they have no interest in reforming entitlement programs, much less getting people off them. When the only thing growing in the country are debt and dependency, our future begins to look more like Greece every day. http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/010913-639961-debt-and-dependency-skyrocket.htm