buddy@43: “If we could raise growth to a mere 4% (or 400% from where we are), we could grow our way to a normal deficit of around 2 or 3% of GDP –or put another way cut by two thirds our current deficit to GDP ratio.”

I feel like there are some gigantic facts out there that are simply escaping my attention and I’m starting to feel really stupid about it. I know buddy is a smart guy and I’m pretty sure he’s a fiscal conservative, like many others here. And yet he, along with many other people whose opinions I’ve come to respect, speaks blithely of a “normal” deficit. Everyone in the world outside of myself seems to feel that it is a good thing if we can just cut down the deficit.

Meanwhile, I look at the $14.whatever trillion we owe and I’m thinking the conversation should be less about cutting the deficit and more about flipping it into a surplus and then arguing about how and by how much we can maximize that to reduce the DEBT. Talking about the deficit in terms of % of GDP in many cases is a lot more fair than throwing around the nominal deficit, but it still feels to me like a distraction. It’s framing the debate wrong by building expectations of a deficit into our baseline, isn’t it? What am I missing? Seems to me we need one mean SOB in the white house to get this thing on the right track. Let’s have a seance and see if we can ring up Andrew Jackson. IIRC, he’s the only one who ever proved he could actually do this.

@45: That would be Fiddler. I don’t think I have any friends who would actually try to read the Obamacare law. I myself would come closest among my circle of friends, and I’d rather finally get around to reading “War and Peace” first.