Orrin, Of course you are absolutely correct in your thinking! I used to think, "Why is it such a big deal that the government's budget is not balanced. Who cares? It doesn't affect me, and there must be a lot of important stuff to do, and maybe we just don't have enough money to work with!" Wow, was I wrong! Your blog entries over the last few months have really opened my eyes to the truth of our monetary system, and the economic principles that have gotten us into the mess we are in! In our household not much changed because of the economic crisis...except our thinking. When that changed we began to evaluate our true assets and liabilities, and our budget--especially whether it was truly balanced. We have been deceived by the same easy credit that caused our economy's problem (without making it simplistic) in the first place, and which is supposed to get us out of it as well. The only logical conclusion we might have drawn is that we too needed a bailout! No, what we need is self-discipline, accountability and an accurate, honest picture of where we stand. This is the only way that we will be able to come up with an action plan. We do need a balanced budget ammendment, but we also need to expose the deceptions under which we operate!