$1.7 Trillion -- With A "T"

clipped from bloomberg.com Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- We are in the midst of a crisis caused by so many financial institutions borrowing too much money. Somehow, a critical mass of policy makers now believes that the correct response is for the U.S. government to borrow too much money. Make no mistake, the CBO forecast is the lowest of lowball estimates. It excludes President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus package and understates the likely costs of the Iraq war, among other things. A comprehensive estimate that accounts for all “known knowns,” as Donald Rumsfeld might say, would be higher by about half a trillion dollars. If the stimulus bill passes, the deficit next year will be $1.7 trillion. Perhaps the most disturbing comparison is this one: When President George W. Bush was first elected, total federal government spending was about $1.7 trillion. In other words, the difference between federal outlays and federal revenue this year will be bigger than the entire government was as recently as 2000.