You may be referring to me when you post that some are confused between the debt and the deficit. If you are, know that I'm not confused. My point is that IF there were a surplus in any year, by default, that surplus would have been utilized to pay down the debt by whatever that surplus amount was. If instead, that surplus was used for some other expense, then in FACT, that can no longer be considered a surplus by definition as it went to pay for an expense, rather than reduce the debt. So therefore, regardless of what either party might say about their respective administrations, we haven't seen a surplus in my lifetime, because our national debt has done nothing but go up, up, up. And INTEREST on the national debt is one of the larger components of any administration budget, so simply paying interest can't be considered lowering the debt. Until actual debt principle is paid off, even if it's only one dollar, no one can TRUTHFULLY call any fiscal year as having a surplus.

I only point this out to emphasize the spin that we get from our politicians, left and right, in order to make us think they've done a good job. While I agree, we may never see the debt paid off, until we at least get to the point where we are paying it down, we'll have done a disservice to ourselves as a Country. And while I'm using we and us, the ones that have control over this are Congress and the President, mainly Congress. So regardless if you're Democrat or Republican, you should hopefully be voicing your displeasure with your representatives that they continue to spend more than they take in, and IMO, the spending side is the major problem. If they could get that under control, THEN maybe, just maybe, we can discuss additional taxes aimed at paying down debt principle. Unfortunately, they may NEVER do that, and I certainly don't think Obama ro McCain will ever approach even a reduction in spending in their terms, whichever gets elected. Hope I'm wrong!