$16,000

If I were advising Mitt Romney for tonight's debate, I'd recommend using one number and its integer multiples over and over tonight. The number is 16,000 and it's the extra dollars of debt that every man, woman and child owes after four years of Obama as president. It's also a good estimate of the additional debt each will face after four more.

"We the people" works both ways. It means you can vote for your leaders, but it also means that you are responsible for paying the bills they run up. A government of the people, for the people and by the people has debts payable only by those same people.

So you owe $16,000 more than you did four years ago. Four more years will add another $16,000. A family of four owes $64,000 more, going to $128,000 if he is re-elected. It's not a rhetorical question to ask, "Where are you going to get that kind of money?" It's not a theoretical debt, it's a real one and you really owe it. As John Kerry and Diane Feinstein* have shown, the rich aren't going to be your sugar daddies. You better start figuring out how you're going to cover your share of the tab.

Or maybe you should start thinking about cutting spending.

* - John moved his yacht out of Massachusetts and Diane has millions in offshore accounts, both to avoid paying taxes.