They keep multiplying into real historical deficits:

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

    • Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
    • Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
    • Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
    • S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
    • Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
    • The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion  
    • Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
    • Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
    • NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

    TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

If those numbers aren’t frightening enough, consider that the United States’ 2007 GDP was $13.8 trillion and that the current U.S. deficit is up to $10.6 trillion.  Throwing another $4.6 trillion on the national credit card will not only put the country in greater debt than what we currently produce but likely will further put other countries in control of American debts.  27% of US debts are in the hands of foreign governments, owned largely by the Chinese, Japanese and British who continue to play the role of dealer to the U.S.’ debt addiction.

Where exactly will these funds come from?  Obama’s demand that cutting unnecessary spending is “imperative” reads with little long-term concern as the President-Elect seems more worried about the potential $1 trillion deficit of the next year’s budget than a generation’s $14 trillion loss.  Worse, Obama has made clear that any deficit reduction would take a backseat to a financial recovery, signaling his desire for another stimulus package worth anywhere from $500 to $700 billion over the next two years. 

Give Obama some credit – his Tuesday press conference cast some light on a number of wasteful Washington programs he intends to end, but it seems doubtful that Obama can pry the checkbook out of the backpocket of an even more liberal Congress.  If Obama does manage to shed Medicare spending and farm subsidies fat faster than a South Beach diet, he’ll have accomplished a more conservative domestic agenda in six months than George W. Bush did in eight years. 

Can Obama bleed two of Washington’s sacred cows in his first 100 days?  It’ll take more than speeches and rhetoric once groups like AARP and the American Farm Bureau Federation land their activists on the Potomac.