Watch Ron Paul and Jim Cramer discuss the Federal Reserve. This is one topic we badly need a public debate on. The Fed is totally unregulated (more secretive than the CIA, says Paul), and its role in the "subprime" meltdown (that could cost seven million Americans their homes) should make us seriously rethink its role. The very mission it is tasked with - centrally managing the money supply to manipulate the market - seems so antithetical to free-market principles. I don't know if we should return to the gold standard, but we definitely need this issue debated.

Then this:

For the 11th year in a row, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was prevented from expressing an opinion on the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government--other than the Statement of Social Insurance--because of serious material weaknesses affecting financial systems, fundamental recordkeeping, and financial reporting.
...
"The federal government's fiscal exposures totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007, up more than $2 trillion from September 30, 2006, and an increase of more than $32 trillion from about $20 trillion as of September 30, 2000," Walker said. "This translates into a current burden of about $175,000 per American or approximately $455,000 per American household."

Thirty-two trillion dollars - that's the contribution of the Bush administration.