Another record-breaking deficit looms.(Inside Track)(budget deficit)(Brief article)

The latest budget figures, released in May by the Obama administration contemplate a $1.8 trillion deficit for fiscal 2009 as the United States economy continues to significantly underperform relative to earlier forecasts. This year's record-setting deficit is now reckoned to be four times last year's--the previous record-setter. Next year, the deficit is expected to decline but still to exceed $1.3 trillion--and that's only if everything goes according to plan.

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But of course, economies never go as planned, as the Brezhnevs and Mussolinis of history attest. The American (and world) economy is struggling mightily to correct for decades of fiscal abuse, mostly in the form of massive public and private indebtedness, huge misallocations of investment, and the inflationary policies of central banks like the Federal Reserve. So far, the only solution that the Obama administration (and the Bush administration before it) has been able to contemplate is more inflation, more ...