Record deficit for next president

From the BBC :

"The next US president is expected to face a record federal budget deficit of almost half a trillion dollars. The White House has lifted its deficit forecast for 2009 to $482bn (£242bn) up from $407bn.

The budget deficit measures how much more the government is spending than it is raising through taxes."

Read : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7529372.stm.

A nice present from the actual president to his successor. How many years will his successor(s) need to clean up the financial mess of the last eight years ?

The cleanup will have to be started by one of two less than genial candidates, with their hands bound behind their back, and in a very morose economic climate, not to name a deep recession.

I'm going to make a wager. I am almost 68. My life expectancy is slightly under 80. I shall not live to see that mess cleared up. I even wonder it if ever will be.

Ok, the US have cleaned up bigger (procentual) messes before, but not very often in a deeply troubled economy and with a couple of wars on their hands.

Good luck to them and to the rest of the world, because if they fail, the rest op the world will have to pick up a major part of the bill.