Last month, the Treasury Department reported that the federal government incurred a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2011, almost identical to the deficit it incurred in 2010. As a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit declined slightly—from 9.0 percent in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2011—but nonetheless it was the third-highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.
