I have bashed Bush repeatedly, so please no replies saying I am just reflexively defending his administration. The fact is our debt as a percentage of GDP is relatively small by international standards. I don't have the exact figures at hand but we are towards the bottom of the G10 countries. The real problem is the coming entitlement invoice whichwill bankrupt social security and medicare. The Democrats have demagogued that issue relentlessly, but in fairness Bush never advanced a compelling solution. We face a series of perplexing and often paradoxical problems. While our economy looks good on paper, we continue to run enormous trade deficits that have resulted in China holding $1 trillion in US paper. We have certainly been instrumental in transforming China from a less developed country into an economic colossus. Reasonable people may differ as to whether that is a good thing or not. Free trade has been the driver for our surface prosperity, but as the problems in the auto industry show, that prosperity has not been without cost. The auto industry is uncompetitive for numerous reasons including stupid management, but a huge part of the problem is that they are saddled with enormous health care and pension costs. Their competitors have those costs picked up by their governments, a form of export subsidization that our free trade negotiators seemed to have overlooked.