"NO NEW TAXES!" IS JUST AN EMPTY GOVERNMENT PROMISE-TAXES MUST RISE SUBSTANTIALLY DUE TO GOVERNMENT SPENDING PLANS!

A $9 trillion federal deficit over 10 years may be too hard to comprehend. But this part is easy: Such unwieldy amounts of debt could have an impact on Americans' bottom line one way or the other -- if not tomorrow, then the day after.

The U.S. government has been spending a great deal more than it has been taking in, and it is on track to do so well beyond the next 10 years. It has been borrowing money to make all that spending possible and it has to pay the money back with interest. How, you ask? By borrowing more.

The solution is straightforward if unpleasant: Shy of finding a fairy willing to leave trillions under Uncle Sam's pillow, lawmakers will have to raise taxes and cut spending.

Have you ever heard of government cutting spending?

The more the country lives on a credit card, the more it makes itself beholden to the demands of its creditors -- many of which are overseas. The danger is that buyers of U.S. debt could become concerned that the country is running too high a balance. If so, they will demand higher interest rates -- thereby making the country's debt problem worse -- or they'll put their money elsewhere.

At that point, things would get ugly.

"Taxes would rise to levels that would make a Scandinavian revolt. And the government would not be able to provide anything but the most basic public services. We would no longer be a great power (or even a mediocre one), and the social safety net would evaporate," tax policy expert and Syracuse University professor Len Burman wrote in a recent op-ed cheerfully titled "Catastrophic Budget Failure."

That's why acting sooner rather than later makes sense. But acting too soon could cause its own set of problems since the economy is only beginning to lick its wounds from a punishing recession.

Economists and tax experts, no matter their ideological position, agree raising taxes when the economy is down is self-defeating. This was tampered by the government promising to only tax "rich people"...right, only the rich!

But as the economy finds a solid footing, the hard choices will have to be made.

"We need to do this in stages at the right time," said David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, in a CNNMoney.com video.

Right now there is a lot of talk, but not a lot of planning, about how to address the situation. Correction, nothing is being done to address the situation.

In fact, President Obama is pledging to keep taxes low for most people. So how does that work, continue low taxes but higher and higher government spending?

For example, Obama has proposed keeping in place the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 (under $200,000 for individuals). The cuts are scheduled to expire in 2011.

A number of temporary tax relief measures, including the patch to protect the middle class from the Alternative Minimum Tax, are set to expire even sooner. And Obama has said he would like to keep many of those measures in place as well. Originally he was going to repeal all these measures.

Experts say that's not going to cut it.

"Taxes are going up and they're going up for a lot more people than those making more than $250,000. Why? Math. The numbers don't come close to working," Walker said.

For instance, the president's proposal to raise taxes only on high-income families would raise an additional $600 billion over 10 years, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

That's not a lot when the government is staring at a 10-year deficit of $9 trillion.

From a math number again, if the annual deficits are $1.5 trillion, a 10 year deficit is $15 trillion, not $9 trillion! WORSE THAN CAN BE (82%) IMAGINED, SINCE IT WOULD BE BIGGER THAN THE ECONOMIES OF ANY COUNTRY AND ALMOST EQUAL TO THE ECONOMY OF THE USA.

A 10-year deficit of that magnitude means the debt held by the public -- the accumulation of all annual deficits over the decades -- would reach 82% of gross domestic product come 2019. That's double the 41% recorded in 2008.

When lawmakers do decide to act, they will need to do more than just tinker with tax rates, according to Williams.

Tax experts have been calling for fundamental tax reform to make the system less complex. Plus, Williams said, Congress will likely need to seek out a new source of revenue beyond the income tax. One idea that has been talked about increasingly is a value-added tax, which is a tax on goods and services at every stage of production up to the point of sale.

Those are crazy ideas but realistic to be considered, and of course ideas that will never, ever be considered by lawmakers in a realistic environment.

For instance, how long can you only be adding taxes to every conceivable theng before it gets to 100%?

Think about it....the taxes that exist now are enormous and are taxes and excise taxes of every type we may not even be thinking about.

For instance, beyond the state and federal income taxes and social security and medicare taxes and the local and federal unemployment taxes that only your employer pays, there are taxes on your home, sales taxes, license taxes, phone bill taxes, utility bill taxes, automobile license taxes,taxes on behalf of every conceivable government entity locally and hundreds of use taxes of every kind depending on what you are 'using" such as fishing or hunting or visiting a park.

A multi-pronged approach ( that means many different ways to tax) may work best because "no piece by itself is enough," Williams said. "There's a really big hole to fill and lawmakers are just talking about dollops."

So be prepared, at some point, the various states will start to collapse on their own weight burden of taxation and spending. California has led the way, with Illinois and others slowly falling like dominoes as they are unable to cover their deficits without increasing taxes, rather than decreasing their expenses.

As they collapse, you are going to be the only one holding up the "collapsing bridge" on your back. Note that people have started migrating away from the high tax states like New York into low tax localities, and that trend is likely to continue.