Who cares if you’re impressed when you’ve fallen for propaganda (I guess maybe politicians care).

“No budget that runs at a deficit is acceptable”

Why not? Deficits can be healthy and safe when they’re managed. Literally most persons, businesses, and governments use debt. It helps manage purchases over time, and it’s an inflationary hedge.

The idea that “any deficit is bad” was literally pushed as propaganda to make you fatalistic about managing the deficit. As said, one party raises it, one party lowers it, and the party that raises it claims that lowering it to anything but zero is “just as bad” as their runaway debt growth. Propaganda.