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This is such a silly argument. Lincoln managed to run the government quite effectively for four years without southern revenue, and at a hugely greater level of expense. By mid-1863 the Union was spending about as much each month as it had spent in all of 1860. By the end of the War it had spent around $6B, or roughly 100 year's expenditures at the 1860 level.

The North suffered a balance of payments problem without exports of Southern cotton. Inflation and debt was the result.

... exports booming.

Not enough to make up for what they were importing. Let's look at 1863. From Appletons Annual Cyclopedia for 1863, page 190:

... the foreign commerce of the country had greatly contracted in face of improved harvest in Europe. ... The "balance of trade," so called, may then be approximated as follows: ... Excess Imports [rb note: imports over exports]: $74,295,706. Net specie export, direct: $54,689,903 [rb note: It's hard to read some of the last six digits on my copy. The North's exports were mainly food stuffs (and petroleum surprisingly) to Europe.]

In constant 1860 dollars, imports were way down during the war compared to 1860.

Gee, the Union had fiscal problems when it was forced into the greatest war in our history. What a shock!

Meanwhile, the Confederacy's brilliant strategy (according to the south will rise again types) of taking itself out of the Union so it wouldn't keep subsidizing the North, led directly to massive collapse of the southern economy. The economic damage to the South of its losing war was still quite present 80 years later, and in some ways continues today.

Not enough to make up for what they were importing.

They were importing war materiel, for the most part, as indeed was the Confederacy, when it got the chance. It is obvious that had the Union split permanently in 1861, the Union was far more fiscally sound than the Confederacy, which was largely dependent on the profitability of a single crop.

The fact remains that the Union was qite able to survive without southern revenes. In fact, total revenues, using only Union resources, increased by 10 to 20 times over those from the entire country in 1860.

In constant 1860 dollars, imports were way down during the war compared to 1860.

Can you provide something to back that up? I've seen other sites - Link - that say adjusted for inflation imports remained about the same. What you posted seems to be talking about net imports over exports.