USA Today wrote on February 2:

"Since taking office last year, President Obama has been preaching fiscal restraint while practicing something else. Nothing shows this more than the budget he released Monday. His administration is planning a deficit for this year of almost $1.6 trillion.

"... the budget plan forecasts an endless flow of red ink that will push the American economy relentlessly toward a perilous economic precipice. This is, of course, Obama's failing. But it is also testament to years of dysfunction in Washington by both parties.

"To make the mind-boggling budget numbers easier to understand, it helps to subtract eight zeroes. Say you earned $21,000 this year, spent $37,000 and borrowed $16,000 to cover the difference. Maybe you could get away with this for a year or two to get through unusually hard times. Beyond that, though, it's a recipe for financial disaster. Such is the fate facing the federal government. The recession turned an already yawning budget gap into a chasm...

"What causes the most concern is not that Obama's budget forecasts three $1 trillion-plus deficits in a row, including the one he inherited from George W. Bush. It is the large deficits projected even when the stimulus will be done and presumably the economy will be in much better shape. The deficits for 2013 through 2015 all run above $700 billion a year...

"Most important, Obama has not laid the groundwork for going after the real problem behind the nation's grim fiscal outlook... America is on a collision course with the kind of debt crisis associated with Third World countries."