Mid-Session Review Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010. Office of Management and Budget: “When the President took office, the Nation was experiencing the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. This decline was not simply the result of a normal downturn in the business cycle; also contributing to it were irresponsible choices made by our public and private institutions that generated a meltdown in our credit and capital markets. As a result, the economy was in the midst of a severe collapse. In the fourth quarter of 2008, real gross domestic product (GDP) was declining at a rate of 5.4 percent per year; household net worth fell by approximately $5 trillion or at a rate of 30 percent per year; consumer confidence had fallen to a 40-year low; and the country had lost 1.7 million jobs, which at that point was the largest quarterly decline since 1945…Despite signs of progress, it is now evident that the economic crisis was more severe than was apparent when the President was constructing his budget. The President’s Budget was based on an economic forecast using data available as of late January. The forecast, along with private forecasters at the time who projected similar growth rates, did not fully anticipate the severity of the recession..In line with recent recessions, we estimate that job creation will lag economic growth by several months and proj ect that the unemployment rate will peak at a rate above 10.0 percent on a monthly basis before beginning to decline in the middle of 2010…the budget deficit is projected to fall in 2010, to $1,502 billion, or 10.4 percent of GDP. Deficits are projected to continue to fall for the next five years from 2011 through 2015 as the economy recovers from the recession, reaching $739 billion in 2015, or 3.9 percent of GDP.”