miamizun,
Yes, the budget is spiraling out of sight. As I posted elsewhere, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan account for about 19 percent of the $481 billion deficit. Congress and the President both share in the guilt of overspending.
As to the unfunded deficits -- they are mainly social security and medicare, which are paid out of current receipts from withholding. That has been the rule since the beginning of the programs, which, I assure you, date to well before 2001.
Unfunded means that there are no funds set aside to pay any of the accounts in the future. However, to achieve the astronomical amounts reported as unfunded, the unemployment rate of the US would have to be 100 percent, with no commerce or collecting of any taxes. If that were the case, unfunded deficits would be the least of our worries.
I've posted a method of achieving Social Security funding, while keeping it in the Government, about six times -- scored and agreed upon by OMB and the Congressional Budget Office -- however, no one in Congress or successive administrations will do anything.
Jose Pinera achieved the same results by a slow privatizing of the Chilean social security system about 29 years ago. Annuitants receive well above the two percent return US annuitants receive for theirs.
Don’t go believing your own propaganda, else you cloud your judgment.