I'd have to take issue with #2. I'm sorry, but the "surplus" is the biggest consensual hallucination ever foisted on the American people by the Democrats or the Republicans. Talk about taking two very close points and extrapolating an exponential curve -- it makes the dotcom mania look like sound economics.

"Hey, we're up half a trillion next year. In 12 years, we'll be swimming in it.". "Oops, we have a war. Now we'll be in grevious debt 12 years hence". I'm sorry, trying to make predictions like that have more to do with predictions in the national enquirer than anything scientific. And politicans are to blame here, not just the Dems and the GOP.