A Crater Where a Robust Economy Once Stood

As has become common practice for the Obama administration, the really bad news gets released on Fridays so it's essentially forgotten over the weekend. Of course, they know that if they release it during half-time of the Superbowl (TM) the media will ignore it so they are going to extremes.

Anyway, here's the feeble state of our economy:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945.

The number, while lower than forecast a few months ago, underscored the challenges ahead in shrinking the deficit even as the White House and Congress are considering more steps to stimulate an economy that is making a slow recovery. The political hurdles to finding a solution were evident on Friday as each political party immediately blamed the other for the growth of the deficit.

The shortfall for the fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, translates to 10 percent of the economy, according to a joint statement from the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter R. Orszag. For the 2008 fiscal year, the deficit of $459 billion was 3.2 percent of the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.

Economists generally agree that annual deficits should not exceed 3 percent of the G.D.P., and that is the level President Obama had vowed to reach by the end of his first term in 2013.

10% of the economy? Three times what is generally considered healthy? This means nothing to those with liberal beliefs, they want to see the deficit somewhere north of 30% because it means an enormous government and one that more and more people are forced to rely on to survive.

Obama will have to raise taxes to get back any semblance of a stable economy but it's not going to happen in the next year prior to the mid-terms as the vulnerable Democrats will never pass any such increase that will come back and bite them.

So we're sentenced to an entire year an ever-spiralling economic situation and the second part of the double dip recession--inflation isn't even upon us yet.

This is the Obama economy and he owns it but hey, they can still blame Bush.

Hope and change my friends..Hope. And. Change.

Exit quote. Remember when Bush said that governing was "hard work?" I guess he's laughing down in Texas as Obama realizes just how hard the work is: