Think of it in terms of money. The money spent on items purchased abroad in part stays here. The part that goes abroad goes into the hands of people who need instead their own money. Thus it is sold to people or enterprises who use it to purchase goods made here, or to invest in this country. (The only exception occurs when our currency is used as a reserve so that it is hoarded abroad. That is not happening today) So the money comes back, and nowadays that happens very quickly.

The government could send out social security checks without affecting the debt limit. This is because any money sent out can be deducted from what the government owes the social security fund, leaving the total debt unchanged..

I don't have much interest in this subject but there are two things that bother me. One is about single sex marriage, the other about civil unions. If civil unions are available to couples of the same sex, it seems to me that allowing single sex marriage has little legal consequence beyond its name. What I don't like about it is that it represents a redefinition of the word "marriage" from what it has meant in all societies that I know anything about, throughout history. And I don't like the government telling me to redefine the words that I use. I have no objection to people coining a new word, say 'morriage' and creating morriage ceremonies, to describe and honor single sex unions whose participants want to have a marriage like form....

Of course demanding that people resign for silly remarks is ridiculous, but if it is to stop being done by racist Democrats it is important that they get a taste of their own medicine.
And didn't a Republican actually resign from such things.
In the present case there is no possibility whatever that Reid, busy with foisting a scandalous medical bill on the American people, resign, so that what Steele has done merely chides the democrats for their double standards and follies. The notion that Republicans should just ignore these things and let the Demos get away with their guff is passive and repulsive.
And for all those who suggest that Reid's remarks are nothing to complain about, they seem to be willfully blind.
It is not...

The Tarp program was a big part of the Big increase in spending attributed to Bush and blamed on him.
This is a bit unfair. In 2008 an international committee meeting in Switzerland changed the rules for security rating. In response to that change, the rating agencies stopped rating mortgage packages that had been rated AAA which had unknown risks.
Previous to this, banks had been permitted to use such securities as reserves. After this change, the market for these securities vanished, they became ineligible to be reserves, the marked for them vanished, and by SEC rules the banks had to mark them to market, and since that market did not exist they had to mark them on their books at zero value. This made the banks technically...