Apparently, it wasn't actually important before...

Philip Klein makes another of the excellent points that keeps getting missed in the finger-pointing over the debt downgrade...

For his first two years in office, Obama’s party controlled both chambers of Congress – for part of that period, he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. During that time period, he and his fellow Democrats could have passed his supposedly ideal, long-term, deficit-reduction package -- one that represented a “balanced approach” between spending cuts and tax increases. It also could have delayed the deficit reduction for several years, so it wouldn’t have affected the current weak economy or the “investments” he considers crucial. Forget about actually accomplishing serious deficit reduction -- he didn’t even attempt it.

Instead, they used their power to force through another entitlement to worsen the long-term debt situation, and to increase structural unemployment in the midst of the worst cyclical unemployment in decades. (Oh, yeah - there was also a transfer of tax dollars to the wealthy and the concomitant destruction of millions of dollars of American assets, raising prices on used cars for years into the future.)

The debt and the deficit weren't on their list of concerns. And we'll all be paying for that now...