thing to go into debt to lessen the impact of recession or, you know, win the war.

2) There are some programs that either by design or due to reality run surpluses in some years and deficits in others. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid have run surplusses--some hugh--for decades. As Boomers retire and use the first two almost universally and Medicaid for nursing homes, they will run deficits. As Boomers die off, the programs will improve (although they'll probably need some tweaking to get back into surplus territory). Requiring those programs to be in the black each and every year without taking into account that they were heavily in the black for decades is absurd--especially when there's simply no way to even out the expenditures from those programs. You'd have to alter the program to install unfairly and absurdly high tax rates to generate the revenues needed in the highest outlay years, which would greatly slow down economic activity.

We know that won't happen, though--as long as the GOP has either the WH, House, or 41 votes in the Senate, they'd stop any increases in contributions. And frankly, jacking up rates year to year based on the happenstance of how many seniors will be in the population that particular year and how many will be sick is awful policy on lots of levels--unpredictability and wild swings being among the policy issues.

What WILL happen is that the two greatest domestic programs in American history will be gutted. Vouchers for Medicare, which won't come close to covering seniors' hc needs, and a lot less money for seniors to retire on after paying into SS their whole lives.