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The current budget deficit, a result of increased spending on homeland defense, the war on terror, and the recession, is not that big a deal, when put into a historical perpective.

"Deficit as a % of GDP" is an irrelevant and misleading statistic. It ignores all other forms of debt that must also be serviced by our nation's domestic economic activity. This includes not only our National debt, but also debt accrued by state and local governments as well as private debt incurred by businesses and individuals.

It is more appropriate to view federal deficit spending in the same manner as any other institution, organization or individual that is borrowing money to finance expenditures that exceed current income. In addition to revenue and expenses, one must consider the amount of debt already incurred and the proportion of revenue that must be allocated to service the interest on that debt.

For FY 2002, interest paid on the National Debt was $332 billion, or roughly 18% of federal revenue for that year.
Interest paid for FY 2003 dropped slightly to $318 billion, but has mushroomed to $115 billion for just the first 3 months of FY 2004.

And the farm bill and the grant to NEA and on and on does add up to a big deal.

You paint a nice picture but there never was a surplus---the govt increased its debt every year including your green years. The surplus was the result of Enron-style bookkeeping.

$100,000+ in obligations per man woman and child is pretty hugh. While current deficits are not an emergency, neither are they helpful. We could still end up going through a European style crisis where pensions burden a generation of productive Americans. We need to privatize Social Security or my kids are going to have to emigrate.