MEMO TO THE U.S. SENATE: WAKE UP! -- BY JOHN STEELE GORDON, Commentary Magazine

In 2009 the federal deficit was 11.2 percent of GDP. And that was the deficit if you count the Social Security and other trust-fund surpluses as income, which the government does. The national debt in 2009 increased by 11.7 percent of GDP.

The reasons given for this enormous deficit are the financial crisis and the recession it caused. But the last year in which unemployment hit its current level of 10.2 percent, in 1982, the deficit was only 5.5 percent of GDP. In 1933,

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