A trillion here, a trillion there...

...pretty soon you've dug a pretty dang deep hole...

President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.

The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

Now, these are just the annual deficits, not the debt itself. That particular monster doubled in size under the Bush Administration. Obama's massive expansion of government involvement in just about everything would double it yet again, from just over $11 trillion to $20 trillion. The INTEREST alone on such a high balance will be enough to throw future budgets into chaos.

It may be that our erstwhile creditors will be the only thing keeping us from our own folly. Many of them are waking up to the fact that lending to us is akin to enabling an addict -- and given the precariousness of their involvement, it won't be a surprise to see them walk away and leave us with our debt equivalent of jonesing.