Debt Be Not Proud: The Sorry Tale of America's Out-of-control Spending

This article provides a little back-story on how we got to where we are today.  Here's a little preview:

The U.S. debt exploded in the last half-century from a fateful intersection of 1) a national economic trauma; 2) a fundamental change in the prevailing economic theory; 3) ill-considered political fund raising reforms after Watergate; and 4) reforms in Congress that made spending impossible to control.