It's a figure of speech. If you take the amount of taxpayer monies spent in questionably necessary war in Iraq (re: genuine threat to US Citizens - not interest

It's a figure of speech. If you take the amount of taxpayer monies spent in questionably necessary war in Iraq (re: genuine threat to US Citizens - not interests - Citizens), toss in a large percentage of predatory student loans ($1T outstanding now), and make healthcare a ticket to insolvency, then yes, functionally speaking, we're broke. I'm just glad in 2008 the entire world felt the monetary swirlie as well, not that it improves the outlook of our species or anything, but purely from self-interest.