Anyone?. . . Anyone?. . . Bueller?. . .

As you know now, the deficit for FY2009 has reached $1.4 trillion, or 9.9 percent of the GDP. It's the biggest deficit since the end of World War II.

In Washington, a common explanation is that the recession produced the deficit. As if that makes it okay.

To be sure, the recession caused substantially lower tax revenue — $419 billion lower.

But the bulk of the deficit is made of spending. A lot of spending since it amounts to $1 trillion: $459 billion of the deficit came from spending decisions made in the years preceding 2009; $245 billion is due to the financial bailout and $347 billion is mainly stimulus spending.

Why does this matter?

Because we have no idea what such big deficits, sustained over so many years, will do to our economy.

Remember that for each of Obama’s years in office, the deficit is projected to be larger than any year during Bush’s terms. That's unprecedented.

For years, the main academic debate over deficit spending was whether it raised long-term interest rates and therefore reduced economic growth. Economists couldn't really find any correlation.

But will that be true now?

It is possible that the reason we haven’t seen a correlation between budget deficits, which were usually around 3 or 4 percent, and interest rates so far is that foreign investment in American assets has increased over the years, dulling the impact of fiscal policy.

The real question — and the real threat — is what will happen if that investment stops, or even if it merely slows down.

And what about when foreign investors stop trusting us? What about when the deficit reaches 10 percent of GDP? 20 percent?

Economic debates aside, deficits certainly do matter if you care about shrinking the size of the state. Budget gaps are a Ponzi scheme. There is always a moment where the government can't get a hold of enough of our cash to maintain appearances.