Just how much debt are we leaving for our children? We’ve been getting a clearer picture throughout the day. First we learned that the budget deficit for 2009 is actually 50% higher than the CBO had earlier predicted. Now we find out that the U.S. government is borrowing a whopping 50 cents for every dollar it spends.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government will have to borrow nearly 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year, exploding the record federal deficit past $1.8 trillion under new White House estimates…

The unprecedented deficit figures flow from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout and the cost of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus bill — as well as a seemingly embedded structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.

That puts the deficit for 2009 at about four times the record-breaking deficit of 2008. And it puts the much-touted $17 billion in savings Obama talked about into a clearer perpective. The erosion in the deficit announced Monday alone is about five times that figure. And you know who the administration is going to blame:

“The deficits … are driven in large part by the economic crisis inherited by this administration,” budget director Peter Orszag wrote in a blog entry on Monday.

Yes, nevermind that porkulus package and the omnibus spending bill (both the responsibility of Obama) that added significantly to the deficit. It’s all Bush’s fault. That’ll be the administration’s excuse for anything wrong that results in large part due to its policies over the next four years.

Look, there’s no doubt that Bush created a massive deficit and continued to build on it year after year. But to pretend as if Obama hasn’t had a hand in all of this is intellectually dishonest. Democrats had control of Congress since 2007 — a majority that included Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Porkulus and the omnibus spending bill — both championed by the new president — have added greatly to the mounting deficit.

Despite what Orszag may want the public to believe — that the Messiah was simply dropped into this crisis without having helped create it since being elected to Congress — Obama’s hands are absolutely dirty when it comes to our present situation.