Sideriosis, you're definitely right that "the village idiot," as you called him, has squandered the benefits of a budget brought to balance by Clinton. This squandering was done, of course, to placate rich Republicans who don't like paying their fair share of taxes (as the rest of us must do) and to finance our senseless war in Iraq. Only a Democrat will be able to fix the debt problem, because the Republicans really don't care if we're in debt. All the Republicans I know are up-front about it: "debt isn't really a bad thing," they say. What they hate is taxes.