There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

To understand the looming deficits, The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office projections of the budget surplus or deficit for the years 2009-12, President Obama’s current term. The budget office has been making estimates for these years for nearly a decade now. The numbers that appear below are the average annual deficit or surplus for this four-year period.

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The $25 Challenge is over in Illinois, and we’re sure the participants are thrilled about that. They agreed to spend no more than $25 on food for a week — that’s about $3.50 a day — and blog about what they learned during the experience.

It was a real eye-opener for most. When you have so little money for food, you realize that “there is food all around you, all the time, but you can’t eat it,” wrote Frank Finnegan, who was planning yet another dinner of ham and beans. He added, “Forget nutrition. When shopping, the only thing that matters is price.”

He makes a number of good points. It is difficult — but not impossible — to buy fresh vegetables and fruit when you’re working with a tiny food budget. And you’d better make sure you can stomach repetition in your diet. You quickly learn that when you’re buying and cooking in bulk to stretch limited dollars, food becomes a means to get necessary calories rather than a delicious treat.

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