The deficit is a basically meaningless measure of our government's true indebtedness? I was aware that accounting could hide a lot of things, but this sounds pretty ridiculous.

I don't consider myself to be a political partisan. I think we are probably better off if the President and Congress are from different parties. Especially if there's a lot of partisan bitterness. The less the government gets done the better off we all are. That would sound like a conservative idea. But, the government should also protect the common interests of it's citizens from both external threats and threats from business interests. Which leads to a bigger government. There doesn't seem to be any real answer.