In 2011 National Public Radio filed a Freedom of Information request for a secret document that had been hidden from the American people for over a decade. Few people knew about this document before it was made public in 2011, and still today after it is public few people know about it. The document is titled, 'Life After Debt', and it was written and circulated in the Clinton administration, and at the Fed in 2000. The document states that because the government had balanced the budget, and even had a surplus, in the three previous years the United States would be completely debt free by 2012. The document identified this as a CRISIS that needed to be averted. In 2000 when this document was composed and circulated in the private halls of the government the national debt was around $4 trillion. In 2011 when the document was made public the debt was around $15 trillion. Today our debt is just under $32 trillion. Crisis averted. Why are the budget and debt ceiling debates nothing more than theater? Join the conversation and get answers to this question and more on According2Sam episode #166.