Boston's own version of "Washington Crossing the Delaware, " by Thomas Sully, a subject that always seems to demand enormous canvases and wall space, had to be accommodated by cutting a hole in the ceiling.
If growth recovers, the hole left by years of serial tax-cutting and overspending can be plugged: you need to find spending cuts or tax increases equal only to 2% of GDP to stabilise federal debt by 2015.
In fact, the Chinese appear to be filling a funding hole created by the U.S., which under fiscal pressure has been cutting aid to Latin America, a trend that continued into the 2013 budget proposal.