Real U.S. shortfall: $4.6 trillion in red

WorldNetDaily reports:

The real 2006 federal budget deficit was $4.6 trillion, not a previously reported $248.2 billion, according to the 2006 Financial Report of the United States Government as released by the Treasury Department Friday.

"The 2006 federal budget deficit of $4.6 trillion is $1.1 trillion more than the 2005 federal budget deficit," econometrician John Williams, who publishes the website Shadow Government Statistics, told WND. "The Bush administration is in an untenable situation with a budget deficit this dramatic. Taxing 100 percent of all wages, salaries, and corporate profits would not eliminate a deficit of this magnitude, and cutting Social Security and Medicare spending is politically impossible."

In his subscription newsletter, Williams comments that the GAAP accounting numbers reported in the 2006 Treasury report show that, "the actual deficit number was nearly 19-times the size of the gimmicked 'official' deficit for 2006 of $248 billion. Total obligations were 4.2-times annual U.S. gross domestic product (GDP)."

No word yet from Ezra Klein on this one.