And that raises another problem that could affect savers down the road. It isn't just that governments won't have the spending lever to pull in the futurethey still have to keep paying for past budget deficits, too. Once today's higher rates are reflected in more of its notes and bonds, the U.S. government's interest bill alone will exceed a trillion dollars a year, more than discretionary spending on everything other than defense. In less than a decade the trust fund for paying Social Security retirement benefits is set to be exhausted. And all this is in peacetimesomething we can't take for Even if savers never demand a little extra interest because of concern about Uncle Sam's creditworthiness, keeping debt service from overwhelming every other part of federal spending might require a maneuver called financial repression. That means shortchanging savers by paying them less interest than inflationa negative real interest rate