I like "spend and pretend", because what they do is spend however and whatever they want and pretend that we don't have to pay it back.  Then they tell their idiot constituency "see, we lowered your taxes and gave you your money back!". 

Oh no, you shouldn't have brought it up!  Here it comes!

Rant mode on: 

Politically it's a perfect stand to take.  The beautiful thing about debt, and what the Republicans love about it, is that it puts the responsibility on the shoulders of some unknown future person.  Of course, sooner or later, someone has to be a grownup and cut spending and/or increase taxes to try to keep us from drowning in debt.  It's easy after the fact to snipe at such people.  This was the case with the first Bush, who had to deal with Reagan's excesses by raising taxes.  He took a hit for this but it was the mature thing to do after two terms with a president that always pretended that what he spent didn't matter.  He was a realist while Reagan was an actor, and we all know how grounded in reality actors can be.  (Fucking Republicans and their goddamned Hollywood politicians)

Junior has taken Reagan's lala land economics and doubled-down on it.  He's spent more than any other president in history, and increased the debt more than any other.  No problem, why should he care, he'll be on the speaking circuit when the shit really hits the fan.  If it gets too bad he can just fade into the background, safe with his money and his smug convictions, while his successor sweats out an intolerable situation and cuts benefits to the old and raises taxes on everyone else.

The Republicans always tell us that we'll "grow our way out of debt".  It sounds wonderful, doesn't it?  We'll just get so goddamned rich that $9 trillion means nothing!  That would be great, I wish it would happen.  

Now for reality. The last twenty five years or so have seen economic growth unprecedented in history.   The Republicans will claim this is a result of lowering taxes.   This is bullshit.  The growth was a direct result of cheaper energy prices.  This may well have been the last period of cheap energy, at least in our lifetimes, and may be the last ever.  Was that period of cheap fossil energy well spent?  It put money into a lot of people's pockets for sure but now we find ourselves using 25% of the world's energy and the world demand catching up with supply, and all alternative sources don't add up to 10% of what we use.  They almost never discuss this because the ramifications are too big, and no one is going to get elected on a platform that realistic.  We need to understand something very important.  Without this energy we are nowhere, we are screwed.  There is no way to sustain our economy without it.  Even a 10% reduction means a heavy recession.  We've got to somehow convert to a new efficient transportation infrastructure that doesn't depend near as heavily on fossil fuel.  This is a monumental task.  We face it with 9 trillion in debt and a population of people in denial.  When you consider this the $1 trillion we just blew on Iraq takes on an enormous significance.  Will it be the straw that broke the camel's back?  That money can only be justified if we stay there and exploit their oil.  I assure you that any moral reservations about doing this will disappear as energy becomes more and more expensive.

What we really needed the last two terms was a great leader.  We needed someone who could create and guide a huge project of restructuring our energy usage to conform to the changing world.  What we got instead was a spoiled kid who's natural inclination, when he is running out of something, is to snatch more of it from someone else.  Never a thought is given to what happens when all the other kids run out.

Rant mode off.  Blood pressure slowly returning to normal.