Three trillion dollars and all of it borrowed. Borrowed. You, and I mean you, will be paying for this for a long time, and then your children will be paying, and possibly their children too.

When Reagan created the largest debt during his presidency of any President before him, people wondered why a conservative would do that. By the time Reagan left office, he had created a debt for America that was larger than all previous Presidents combined . More debt than all Presidents combined, including WWII President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who also sent soldiers to university and built many many of them very cheap homes).

President Bill Clinton on the other hand for example, payed down the debt, and racked up surpluses.

And now, by transferring $3,000,000,000,000.00 to his friends in the private army fields and military industry companies etc. etc. and by lowering their taxes at the same time. He has given the government a staggering debt.

So what is the connection between these two Presidents? Why does the accumulation of debt figure so high in their agendas?

Katrina is the clue for readers who like to jump ahead.

The operation of a democracy requires funding. Someone must pay for schools and roads. If you believe as Grover Norquist does:

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Then de-funding the government to that point is an effective tool. "We can't afford THAT!!" If a government cannot fund even the basic day to day operations, then it becomes effectively bankrupt, new programs to deal with social problems, funding universal health care, housing, well equipped soldiers (well paid too) becomes extremely difficult if possible at all.

President Obama (or President Clinton) will be forced to first to deal with the recession that is coming, then the debt. Raising taxes is necessary of course, but not popular. Even rescinding the tax breaks for corporations the wealthy will probably produce paltry returns in a recession.

That is a central part of the plan, not an accidental byproduct. To be clear, it is part of the overall republican strategy to destroy the ability of the government to govern. Allowing a Democrat to take office now just allows the blame for the oncoming recession, the the taxes that will be needed to be paid for this staggeringly massive debt, and the disappointment about how much change is affordable in such circumstances.

The new administration will need to find strong revenue raising systems to pay these debts. I am not advocating any one specific method now, my point is the crisis we are in, is almost literally nothing compared to the crisis we face. The initial costs of moving to a post carbon economy, the costs of UHC, the demands for affordable accessible education, the rebuilding of America's infra-structure (which has been abandoned to collapse), all will have to be dealt with at the same time that a nation is being rebuilt, with dollars shrunken by Bush's disastrous policies. Do not be excited by the possibilities of a new coalition taking office without being completely aware of the difficulty of the task ahead.

Three Trillion Dollars.