Ron Suskind's book on Paul O'Neil wrote that Cheney made the comment that "Deficits don't matter". Cheney meant politically that deficits don't matter, while they matter economically and to the economic health of a country, in the United States the politics are such that it doesn't matter. When it was written in Suskind's book it caused a furore as it became a template for the profilgate spending of the Bush Administration. Cheney, however, was perfectly correct. Paul Krugman writes:

... after one of the biggest moves toward budget balance in history [Clinton/Gingrich], a majority of Republicans, and a plurality of all voters, believed that deficits had increased. ... The truth is that the truth about budgets plays almost no role in real politics.

Sadly, Cheney is right. Politically; deficits don't matter.