ARTICLE: It's Hard to Worry About a Deficit 10 Years Out, By FLOYD NORRIS, New York Times, August 27, 2009

And another county heard from on the deficit:

Ten years ago, Washington was worried about the budget outlook, and there were forecasts of dire outcomes. And so it is today.

The difference is the nature of the worries. Alan Greenspan, then the Federal Reserve chairman, talked about the dangers of a shortage of Treasury securities as the $5 trillion surplus forecast for the next decade enabled the national debt to be paid down. This week we were warned of a $9 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.

"The last time people got really excited about a 10-year budget outlook, they were hysterically wrong about what transpired," said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG, who mocked the surplus forecasts then and now thinks the consensus outlook is too negative.

"The $5 trillion surplus was a 'nothing can go wrong' forecast," he said. "No recessions, no wars, no bear markets and a perpetuation of inexplicably high tax receipts. You can make the case that the current conversations about our fiscal outlook are effectively, 'Nothing can go right.' The estimates assume we continue to allocate over $100 billion a year for fighting wars. They assume a very mild recovery for the economy, and an even milder recovery for tax receipts."

Reason I cite: I remember that discussion a decade ago and I remember it quite vividly.