Ignorance is Bliss

Excerpted from The Heritage Foundation:

As a result of massive government overspending, "America will run its first ever trillion-dollar budget deficit this year," writes Heritage budget policy analyst Brian Riedl.

Riedl reveals the shocking numbers. In 2009, the federal government will:

• Spend $30,958 per household -- the highest level in American history;
• Tax $17,576 per household; and
• Borrow $13,392 per household.

These numbers reflect a 22 percent year-on-year increase in spending, Riedl explains. This represents "the largest government expansion since the 1952 height of the Korean War."

The government's spending spree will likely cause this year's deficit to top 11.2 percent of gross domestic product, nearly double the post-World War II record of six percent.

"The new spending estimates are alarming and absolutely unsustainable -- and are the true cause of these appalling levels of deficit and debt," explains Riedl. "The result will be the highest level of spending -- and debt -- in American history."

President Obama claims to have inherited this staggering deficit of $1.58 trillion -- an amount greater than the combined deficits between 2002 and 2007. But his budget blueprint, which includes $1.4 trillion in tax increases and $9 trillion of new borrowing over the next decade, does little to tame it. And this doesn't even include the President's high-priced health care overhaul.

President Obama also claims he can cut the deficit in half by 2013. But that's not really an improvement: this year's deficit is nearly four times what it was last year, so cutting it in half would still leave a deficit that is double what it was under President Bush.