Americans are now looking at the bottom-line as far as this country's finances are concerned while no longer accepting Washington's old rhetoric of everything is fine.

The larger population of concerned voters no longer care if the out-of-control rise in debt is the fault of Democrats or the Republicans.

To go one step further, there are those including one man who is deeply concerned that Washington's spending with hopes of collecting tomorrow is way out of hand.

Bill Gross, a founder of the investment giant Pimco, describes this dying economy closely to a Ponzi scheme even in a subtle way.

This is actually more than a mere concern. He has become so worried about America's national debt that he has started selling some of his holdings of U.S. government bonds in favor of foreign bonds from such countries as Germany, Canada and France.

"In order to pay the interest and the bill when it comes due, we'll simply have to issue more IOUs. That, to me, is Ponzi-like," Gross has said. "It's a game that can never be finished."

Looking at this nation's fiscal health, the national debt which now totals 9,377,204,236,563.68 as of January 13, 2011, is rapidly becoming a dominant political issue in Washington as well as across the country, and certainly not just among the "tea party" crowd.

However, the true accumulative debt actually comes to $14,007,216,975,377.59 when you add $4,630,012,738,813.91 in Intragovernmental Holdings to the public debt of nine plus trillion dollars.

What type of catalyst will it take to start moving this country forward with a more positive financial outlook? Many say it will take a high-level of bipartisan cooperation and talks to find such a solution.

In fact, a report by the Congressional Budget Office states that it expects this debt to reach $20 trillion over the next decade. This does not sit well with St Louis mortgage owners.

And this assumes that there are no new recession-type blips, no new wars or military actions and no new financial crises on the horizon.

Would this be the ultimate doomsday scenario? Call it what you may. But foreign investors are getting nervous and 'demanding higher interest rates to continue bankrolling American profligacy' as one journalist put it.

In turn, the United States government will have to borrow more money in order to pay off the interest due on this huge loans from foreign countries.

This in turn may deliver a death-dealing blow to our once thriving nation leading to an unparalleled downward spiral for our already sinking economy. But there are those who feel this can be fixed.

Keep in mind that whenever a Ponzi scheme exists and then collapses it does so because there are no new sources of income or borrowers to be duped to pay off earlier investors.

And if politicians get together and move forward with much needed solutions, many feel some type of fiscal sanity might be in place.

But ironically, this is the cynicism that is shared by Bill Gross and millions of concerned consumers that being: In addition to running a budget deficit, Washington has had an equal massive deficit of political goodwill. Perhaps the tide will change.