Just how worrisome our national debt has become was readily evident when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly thanked the Chinese for buying so much of it.

The national debt is the cumulative total of the federal government's annual budget deficits, which got out of control during the Bush administration and are now, it is generally agreed, at unsustainable levels.

President Obama, vowing to get the red ink under control, convened a deficit summit in Washington in advance of his submitting a summary of his planned 2010 budget to Congress on Thursday.

The Bush administration bequeathed Obama a 2009 deficit of $1.2 trillion and that should rise, with the full impact of the president's stimulus package, to more than $1.5 trillion - some believe it will be as high as $2 trillion -in his first full year of economic stewardship. His forecasters aim to reduce the deficit to $533 billion by 2013, still large by historical terms, and hold it to about 3 percent of GDP through 2019.

It will be a difficult feat to pull off, particularly if the president still plans to extend health-care coverage to 46 million uninsured, potentially a huge and costly new entitlement.

It is unlikely any serious deficit reduction will take place - or should take place - in the midst of a recession. But by outlining his plans now Obama is lessening the shock when they actually come.