Bizarro World
Just a random thought. When did everyone start caring about the budget deficit again? President Bush rummaged through a surplus and exploded our national debt with impunity. Republicans were all over my teevee saying that deficits really don't matter all that much; growth does. Now suddenly even Democrats are bashing Obama for proposing a budget that yes will increase the debt in the short run, and may even increase it in the medium-short run as well, depending on what kind of growth we have.

For 8 years I don't remember anyone giving a rat's ass about the deficit. They ridiculed everyone who brought it up by pointing out what a small percentage of the GDP it is.

And now, now we face a legitimately frightening, indisputably significant economic crisis. And that crisis is NOT the fact that we have a national debt that is growing. It seems obvious to me that if we don't get the economy moving, and then growing again, the deficit will be the least of our problems and will surely expand, no matter how much we limit spending. We just had a historic election, in which Americans voted for fundamental change on a host of issues, and I don't remember the budget deficit being mentioned at all. Now suddenly everybody's a hawk. WTF? Of all the times to not give a shit about that, this would seem to be it. If we don't stabilize the financial industry, the downward economic spiral will simply get worse. But once we do that, if we don't also address our health care system and our oil dependency, we still leave the economy screwed. And yes it will cost some money to address these problems! Duh!

Why is he having to answer so many questions about this?!? And why are so many Democrats in Washington falling for it?!