Budgetary Hope And Change

Nothing drives home a point like a good visual:

The Washington Post provided an interesting graph accompanying its story over the weekend on the CBO's budget projection:

The CBO estimates that the deficit over the next decade will be $2.3 trillion more than the White House calculated. The CBO also shows the deficit decreasing each year until 2012 and then ballooning each successive year thereafter.

Can't you already hear Obama on the 2012 campaign trail claiming that he "cut" the 2010 deficit in half? Thanks to the CBO we already know that this talking point is nonsense. Not only will the deficit explode following 2012, Obama's 2012 deficit will still be larger than Bush's biggest deficit.

Take another look at this graph.  The very best year under Obama's leadership -- even assuming all their rosy projections, which is laughable, especially given that they somehow missed $2.3 trillion in their own estimates -- is about 50% more than the biggest deficit in the 8 years prior, and most are orders of magnitude bigger.

Is this the hope-n-change you voted for?  Too bad, because it's the hope-n-change you got.

There's my two cents.