The Treasury Department is now spending federal pension money in order to keep the bills paid, Reuters reported yesterday.

But don’t worry. The administration plans to pay the money back after it can start borrowing money from China and Japan again, after the debt ceiling is increased. Feel better?

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the pension grab is largely self-imposed. With Europe in such trouble, the world still seems willing to lend America money despite its unsustainable spending projections. It is America’s own law that is preventing the government from borrowing more money. Yet, a market-imposed foreign creditor boycott is looming larger with each increase of the debt ceiling.

The federal debt hit $15.2 trillion in December—another new record. More ominously, the nation’s debt is now equal to its entire gross domestic product. History shows that once debt levels reach this level, economic growth slows dramatically and thus the odds of a major economic accident go way up.

One day soon America might be “forced” to confiscate its people’s private pension money because no one else will lend it anything. This is what happened in Argentina in 2008. This is what happened in Ireland in 2009. And what happened to Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal and France, last year.

Don’t think it couldn’t happen to America.

And don’t think “borrowing” money from pension plans isn’t stealing. If a private corporation “borrowed” money from its employees’ pension plans, someone would be going to jail.