“It used to be that a new report of budgetary red ink would touch off a political crisis in Washington. There would be speeches and news conferences and blue-ribbon commissions and legislation and brinkmanship over how to get the nation’s fiscal house in order,” the New York Times reports.“But when the national debt topped $40 trillion last week — that’s trillion with a T — the collective body politic all but shrugged. Never mind that the U.S. government now owes twice as much money as a share of the economy than two decades ago. Republicans and Democrats issued perfunctory, my-we’re-concerned statements and promptly moved on.”