Once upon a time in America, the federal budget had this thing called a surplus. You may remember hearing that word – it's a weird condition where the government has more money than it's spending. Nowadays, of course, we have a rising national debt and a 2008 federal budget deficit that's expected to hit $410 billion, up from $148.5 billion in 2007.

That means our next president is going to have a heaping helping of economic trouble on his plate. Good thing John McCain has prepared a simple two-step plan for whipping the federal budget back into shape.

Step 1: Win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, already. According to a just-released economic policy report from the McCain campaign…

The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.

Holy cow, why hasn't anyone else figured out that we can just hit the Win Now button and transfer that war spending to the national debt? It seems so obvious.

Step 2: Encourage people to wear hideous plastic shoes.

Later today in Colorado, [McCain] plans to use a comfy and colorful example to explain why he supports free trade.

"Five years ago, the outdoor footwear company, Crocs, was started by a couple of entrepreneurs with a great idea, ingenuity and drive," he plans to say, according to excerpts of his speech. "This former small business now employs 600 people in Colorado alone, and sells over 50 percent of its products in 90 countries around the world. Building barriers to Crocs or any American company's access to foreign markets will have a devastating effect on our economy and jobs, and the prosperity of American families."

You heard the man. People of the world, buy our Crocs! One pair in every color! We have to sell 1.36 billion pairs of those suckers by the end of this year if we want to make up the deficit, so screw fashion and start shopping!