Quadruple

Not a word you use a lot in polite conversation: Quadruple. To increase by four times.

The Bush-Pelosi-Reid budget of 2008 managed to set a record with the highest budget deficit in our nation's history. With Barack Obama taking over the Oval Office, the new team has managed to QUADRUPLE that record in just their first year:

The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion -- about four times the record set just last year. The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says. The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.

For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan. In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money.

Defenders of the spendthrift Adminstration, including the White House Budget Director, claim that it's not the President's fault. It's the economy. Well, it's also the unpredecented spending. The never-ending string of bailouts and stimuli have exploded government spending in pursuit of the discredited Keynsian solution of using government spending to regulate the economy into recovery. In doing so, they have devalued the dollar, made investment in the U.S. less attractive, and doen substantial harm to our country's long-term fiscal health.