Deficit spending and government debt are reaching a level that could culminate in another economic crisis as big as the one that hit the United States last year, Minnesota’s Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty told CNSNews.com.

“One of the main things I’m very worried about is this administration and the Democratically-controlled Congress running on a pathway to bankruptcy,” Pawlenty said. “I mean, we have a reckless amount of deficit and debt in this country. The Obama administration and this Congress are exponentially growing that.”

The $787 billion stimulus package pushed by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats was supposed to salvage the tanking economy, but that measure – along with the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry pushed by the Bush administration and supported by Obama – will boost the nation’s debt by $9 trillion to a total of $14.5 trillion by 2019, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

It took the United States 232 years to accumulate $5.8 trillion in debt under Obama’s 43 predecessors, according to a report by the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee earlier this year.

“It’s going to massively burden our children and our grandchildren,” Pawlenty told CNSNews.com. “I think we’re going to have government debt equivalent to the subprime mortgage meltdown in the not too distant future. And for those of us who can see that coming, we need to stand up. We need to shout that that is reckless, that is irresponsible, and we can’t allow that to continue.”

Pawlenty spoke recently at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, hosted by the political action arm of the conservative Family Research Council. He also weighed in on the divisive health care debate.

“Public funding of health care should not be an excuse for taxpayer funding of abortion,” Pawlenty said. “I challenge President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid to extend the Hyde Amendment to the health care bill. That will put an end to the bureaucratic game-playing.”