Cornyn’s statement is an easily disproved lie. The current deficit is $11.4 trillion and that hefty sum was not amassed in the less than five months Obama has been in office. The New York Times analyzed nearly ten years worth of CBO reports to find the cause of the deficit. Their findings show that, while Obama is not above reproach, the majority of the deficit was very much an inherited situation.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The percentage breakdown of that “$2 trillion swing” goes as follows: Business Cycle- 37%, Bush Legislation- 33%, Obama’s Bush Extensions- 20%, and Obama’s Policies- 10%. That last group breaks down into two parts– 7% is from the stimulus bill and 3% from policy agendas in areas like health care and the environment. 10% of $2 trillion isn’t particularly damning. It is, at worst, Achilles’ collarbone.

WINNERS

John Cornyn: The incoming chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee got a bit of good news as he looks at (another) tough electoral landscape in 2010. Had Chambliss lost Tuesday night, the “sky is falling” sentiment within the party would have run wild, making it tough for Cornyn to recruit top tier candidates and drive fundraising. Now the Texas senator has at least one good talking point to donors and prospects.

Poor Chris, up against a deadline, knowing he must offfer something on the Georgia race but unable to find any kind of relevant angle anywhere. In his frustration, he turns to that time-honored tradition known as turd polishing.

Saxby Chambliss (l) and Zell Miller - eh, close enough

Fact is, this is not good news for John Cornyn, or Bible Spice, or any Republican on the face of the earth other than Saxby Chambliss himself. Imagine this as the NRSC recruiting slogan: “We elected a Republican to the Senate in Georgia. Georgia!!!”

A conservative Republican being forced into a runoff in Georgia against a liberal Democrat is not a victory, not in a state in which Democrats usually look either like Republicans (Sam Nunn) or insulting Southern stereotypes (Zell Miller – who did, surprise surprise, endorse and campaign for Chambliss). Winning said runoff is a victory only in that it holds a seat that should never have been in jeopardy to begin with.

Now that doesn’t mean everything’s hunky-dory on the Democratic side of things – the Georgia runoff was not exactly masterful GOTV, for starters. But those who are trying to spin the Georgia result into anything like a GOP “comeback” are grasping at some of the thinnest reeds of hope I’ve ever seen. Or, like Chris, they’re up against a deadline and need to pull something out of their ass.