For our liberal friends who never tire of claiming the nation’s fiscal problems were inherited from the prior administration, buckle up and enjoy this instructive clip from our friends at Political Math (via Gabriel Malor).

It is difficult to demonstrate the scope of the deficit problem in easily understood terms, and this is great work by Political Math. Extending this analogy a little further, it’s interesting that an Administration which made it a priority to require the auto industry to produce more fuel efficient cars, in other words cars which do more with less, sees no need for such austerity when it comes to its own operations. The President would have us cram our families into a hybrid, while he and his underlings in the GSA are out taking the government Lamborghini for a few (trillion) laps around the deficit track. Forget austerity and efficiency, those are failed policies of the past. The only thing this President wants is more and more fuel for his spending. High octane from the 1% initially, but rest assured, he will keep that supercar running at 200+ mph on lower grade if he has to. And he will.

If you ask me, this, even more than the economy, should be the defining issue of the 2012 election. The President was presented with multiple opportunities to address the long term deficit – including a bipartisan framework from his own commission – and each time he simply to chose to walk away. This is one of the most remarkable failures of presidential leadership in history, and it’s time to take the keys away before we careen into an abyss we’ll never get out of. Which is apparently located somewhere south of Puerto Rico.