Obama's day of reckoning

On taking office nine months ago tomorrow, President Barack Obama went on an ambitious shopping spree, expanding the government's domestic role and asserting new leadership in world affairs. Now bills are coming due.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that in spite of defense savings and other cost reductions in the president's budget, over the decade to 2019 he would cut taxes by $2 trillion and lay out $2.7 trillion more in expenditures than projected under current law. Federal deficits over the decade would more than double, from $4.4 trillion to $9.1 trillion.

The president's budget office recently confirmed the $9.1 trillion figure -- and might still be underestimating the red ink.

The president has seemed serenely unconcerned by the implications of his borrowing and spending spree. But others have not (see David Brooks' column on today's Commentary page). The dollar has fallen sharply while gold has shot to new heights. The financial world appears to be betting that the Obama administration plans to inflate its way out of debt, and some experts are forecasting the demise of the weakening dollar as a universal medium of exchange.

The tipping point in Mr. Obama's budget calculations appears to have been caused by Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment that success in Afghanistan will require a big increase in resources -- and troops.

But even doubling the U.S. budget for military operations in Afghanistan would cost less than $70 billion a year for several years -- relative peanuts compared to some of Mr. Obama's other spending priorities, including health care. The CBO reported on Oct. 7 that the Senate Finance Committee version of a bill to mandate and subsidize health insurance will add $829 billion to federal spending over a decade.

Meanwhile, more than $600 billion of the president's ambitious stimulus bill remains unspent. Nevertheless the White House is expected to push for additional domestic spending authority next year in hopes of lowering the unemployment rate, according to The Washington Post.

Backing away from his Afghanistan commitment would leave the president leeway to expand the stimulus without reworking his budget plan, but at a dangerous cost to the nation's safety and its international role.

However, no small change on the margin, including a scaled-down war plan, will solve the rising debt problem in the president's budget.

The reckoning for all that red ink is coming due soon, whether Mr. Obama is ready or not.