6:50 p.m. — The budget predicts a deficit of $407 billion in FY09 (and a FY08 deficit of $410 billion), a figure that just squeaks under the record (in dollar terms) budget deficit of $413 billion in FY05. Even more staggering is to go back to the first budget from this White House and find that the FY02 budget was for less than $2 trillion and at that time the FY09 budget was supposed to be $2.5 trillion. Of course a lot happened between February 2001 and today, but it is sobering nonetheless.

Other budget facts: by the end of FY09 the debt is expected to be well in excess of $10 trillion. At the end of 2000 it was $5.6 trillion and the debt didn’t cross the $1 trillion threshold until 1982.

Information on deficits and debt can be found in the Historical Tables section of the budget (pdf | 1.64MB)

The FY02 budget summary is available in Table S-3 (html)