Obama doesn't get the deficit.....or much of anything else...

As you can tell from Obama's SOTU address last night asking for "investment" (more spending)he certainly doesn't get it...

Deficits on pace to hit $2.58 trillion

By DAVID ROGERS | 1/26/11 10:21 AM EST

New budget estimates Wednesday paint a grim picture of the nation’s fiscal state, with the government on pace to rack up combined deficits of $2.58 trillion for 2011 and 2012 even with an improved economy.

With the Treasury already warning it will have exhausted the government’s borrowing authority this spring, the Congressional Budget Office report is the most up-to-date analysis of just how big an increase in the debt ceiling will be needed prior to the 2012 elections.

“CBO’s report should be another wake-up call to the nation,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). “We can’t continue to put this off. We need to reach an agreement this year. The President’s Fiscal Commission provided a model for a bipartisan way forward. Now it is up to the administration and members on both sides of the aisle in Congress to come together to finish the job.”

The deficit numbers are sure to add to the pressure now from Republicans for more spending cuts first, but the GOP must also contend with the added cost of the year-end bargain it struck with the White House expanding on Bush-era tax breaks and adding payroll tax relief.

For the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, CBO is projecting a deficit of $1.48 trillion, or $414 billion more than it assumed last August. And in fiscal 2012—for which President Barack Obama will submit his budget next month—CBO’s baseline now assumes a deficit of $1.1 trillion compared to $665 billion last summer.

Following so quickly on the president’s State of the Union address, the CBO report underscores concerns too from moderates in both parties that Obama has not yet conveyed enough urgency about the mounting debt problem.

The typically friendly Washington Post editorial page took the president to task Wednesday morning for having missed an opportunity “to prepare Americans for fiscal austerity.”

And Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a member of the Senate leadership and important voice on budget matters, signaled that the pressure is now on Obama to do more when he submits his new 2012 spending plan next month.

“The president was eloquent, but what we need from him is a greater sense of urgency and a plan to reduce spending and debt at a time when Washington borrows 42 cents of every dollar it spends,” Alexander said.