[djmcmath]

JYL, good analysis. I've actually never thought about it that way -- gov't as shock absorber, I mean. Whether or not I agree with it is irrelevant, it's a pretty good idea. And I'd be willing to bet that far fewer than 20 in 100 randomly selected voters understand that concept.

... If it worked perfectly, the gov't would only be in debt during a downturn, right? I mean, optimally, during the boom times, the gov't would be thoroughly in the black, with no debt ... right?

So the answer, the fix for this massive deficit problem is at least partially voter education. The trouble is that the education needs to happen on a grand scheme, such that concepts like you describe above are household-level ideas. When that happens, the people that the parties pick have no choice but to talk to these things. As it stands right now, I don't believe that either of the major options we had in this last election would have managed the deficit like you suggest it should be done. People have really forgotten about the deficit, I think, at a "Main St." level -- nobody really talks about it much.

Dan