As much as I love the argument to cut federal spending, this word picture doesn't make it any clearer:
An analogy: If every penny represents $1 billion, our national debt plus current deficit equals 15,800 pennies. The GOP has removed 10 pennies so far. That's it. And the Democrats wanted to remove about 4 and 1/2 pennies for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends in October.
Helpful analogies make ethereal concepts concrete. When was the last time you had fifteen thousand pennies? Thousands of coins are about as understandable as billions of dollars.