Sure it's important to keep Obama in line -- but before progressives stamp their feet too loudly, it’s worth taking a look at what a president Obama would inherit on day one: an economy on the edge. The U.S. deficit is now approaching half a trillion dollars for 2009. Think about what it would mean to pay the interest on that amount of money. The veterans administration is spending more than $80 billion a year to help injured vets and the second–biggest wave of mortgage defaults is about to hit shore. Delinquencies among prime loans – the lion’s share of the market - have doubled and let’s not forget that General Motors is teetering on bankruptcy and Ford is not far behind.

In Europe, word is that had the U.S. government not stepped in to shore up mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Chinese government would have taken dramatic action to move away from U.S.-backed securities. That's because China held so much of the debt Fannie and Freddie sell. Kevin Phillips, a keen observer of the American political economy --- warned in his last book that U.S. data understate inflation, in other words, the price of food and fuel is going up even faster than we know. And, he argues, unemployment is significantly higher than the government tells us.

There’s not much good news anywhere on the U.S. economic front. So what does that mean for Obama? Simply that bold and sweeping change is not just smart election strategy–it may be the only thing that stands a chance of keeping the U.S. economy on this side of the cliffside.