SASless, with that in mind, I'd have hoped that Pres GW Bush and BH Obama would keep in mind history lessons from the Kings of France, Louis, between XIV and XVI.
At some point, you can go broke and have all of your policies blow up in your face. I am concerned that we've had a string of Congresses and Presidents who believe "It can't happen to us" when in fact it can.
The sole virtue of the Clinton Administration, from that perspective, was that it engendered a real knockdown/dragout between the Legislative and Executive branches on fiscal responsibility, which ended up in the last two years achieving a roughly balanced budget.
It is a tragedy that the fiscal momentum from that political bun fight was not carried forward by follow on administrations.