Today the government announced a record deficit for the year 2009. Typical sparring ensued – Republicans blamed an irresponsible congress, Democrats blamed an irresponsible president, and both presumptive presidential candidates shouted “change!” at whoever would listen.

Clearly the Republican party has broken a long string of promises and punditry, which decried the excesses of the Democrats’ “big government” and called for fiscal conservation. After eight years of a Republican president, however, the national debt is now equal to 40 percent U.S. GDP – higher than at any other point in history.

It would be a breath of fresh air if McCain took this opportunity to return to some of the maverick statements that got him respect on both sides of the party line – decrying tax rebates we couldn’t afford comes to mind. It profits the American people (and economy) nothing if the rebates and stimulus checks we are getting in the mail are just more loans we (or our children) will someday have to pay back. Obama has a more practical approach, although enough is just not being said in his camp either about the difficult decisions that HAVE to be made to defeat the deficit.  One would think that the government would have learned a little something from the current economic crisis – too many people took out loans they couldn’t afford. Sound familiar?