You're right on the economy, though. Dubya has put us in a bad way with regards to not only going into debt, but with WHOM we're into debt. The Chinese only have to call it its debt to us, and we're sunk. THEN they wouldn't need to worry about us getting involved in Taiwan......if they be so bold.
Actually you have this kind of backwards. If they call in their debt it basically becomes worthless and Americans can buy it back at fire sale prices. Meanwhile we cut most imports from China (Most people can go a a year or more without buying any cloths or Elmo dolls) and the 60 million workers who work on exports in China and represent 60+% of their economy are immediately out of work and the Chinese economy collapses. The US economy would fall into a deep, deep recession but the Chinese would be totally screwed. The Chinese hold ~$1 trillion of US debt, but the US economy is $13 Trillion+, so we could weather that blow.
In fact, US debt compared to GDP or especially compared to wealth (the value of all the land, buildings, stocks, cash on hand, etc.) is much lower than most European countries (Like Italy. Yikes!) [X(] The gross number of dollars in the yearly deficit are relatively unimportant, it's the debt as a ratio to total economy that's a concern. If the debt rate is lower than the productivity gain rate (which it is for the US, but not for most of Europe), then it's not a big problem. In fact, the deficit as a percentage of GDP last year was 1.9%, well below the 30 year average, and the productivity gain was ~2.5%. And the deficit will be quite a bit lower this year. You need to get your info about the economy from somewhere besides the usual suspects (CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS/MSNBC/NYTimes/Time/Newsweek). [:-] Watch how the second a Democrat gets in the White House the awful, nasty economy will become the best in the history of the Universe! Why, we will be the envy of every Khlatoo on Omicron 5!! [:D]
The deficit only looks bad next to the artificial surpluses brought about by the Dot Com explosion during the last half of the Clinton admin. After the bust we were going to have deficits no matter what. There are things to worry about in the economy and federal budget, but for the moment the deficit is a lesser concern.
