As Glenn Reynolds says, things that can’t go on forever won’t, and, as Margaret Thatcher once said, the big problem for socialists comes when they run out of other peoples’ money. Or as David Burge (Iowahawk) tweeted a few days ago,

Paul Ryan represents Obama’s most horrifying nightmare: math.

Most of us understand that when there’s no more money left, that it’s time to stop spending. Yes, we borrow for big ticket items, but we realize that the mortgage and the car note have to fit inside our monthly cash flow.

California is well on it’s way to becoming Greece-on-the-Pacific and several other blue states are following along. One of the important questions of the 2012 election is whether the federal government will follow along as well or whether we will demand that it’s financial house be put in order.

Governments at all levels have been making unrealistic, unsustainable promises. There aren’t enough financial assets in the country to cover all the promises made by the federal government ($153 trillion in assets v $168 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities). Even confiscating all of the holdings of the 1 % and every other asset down to your kid’s college savings fund and grandmother’s savings account won’t cover it all. Something will have to give. Will we begin to turn away from disaster in a controlled manner, or will we keep going off the cliff? That’s a question that frightens the President. It maybe his worst nightmare.

Is it November yet?