The night before last, I could not sleep. My mind was stuck on a phrase uttered by the President-elect based on a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), trillion dollar deficits. Plural. A trillion dollars and more per year for the next few years. I tried to picture just how much money that actually is. How many zeros? Well, I went a million is six, a billion nine, and a trillion thus twelve. A one followed by twelve zeros. Mind-boggling and sleep depriving.

It is some small consolation to hear that members of Congress are today in shock over the CBO projections. At least, we now know that they aren't asleep at the wheel though it is certainly not fair to blame the deficit sins of the past on the current 111th Congress. But now it seems the debate over the size of the fiscal stimulus is taking on new twist in light of the stunning deficit projections. Via the Christian Science Monitor:

Stunned at the prospect of a $1.2 trillion deficit this fiscal year, lawmakers in Congress are taking a harder look at how big a stimulus plan America can afford.

Until Wednesday's release of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, the main topic on Capitol Hill was how big the recovery package needs to be to reverse the economy's slide.

Now, there's a second theme: Is there a tipping point between the stimulus needed to revive the economy and a level of borrowing and debt that's too much for future generations to bear?

"There's a consensus among economists that we need to do something big," says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "But we need to calibrate between creating jobs - green jobs, long-term jobs - and not getting weighed down with too much burdensome debt."

There's more...