A Budget Deficit You Can Believe In

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.