The headline is “CBO Sees Record Budget Gap At Nearly $1.5 Trillion.”

As the Associated Press writes, “new budget estimates released Wednesday predict the government’s deficit will hit almost $1.5 trillion this year, a new record. The daunting numbers mean that the government will have to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.”

The wire service adds that “the latest figures are up from previous estimates because of bipartisan legislation passed in December that extended Bush-era tax cuts, unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provided a 2 percent payroll tax cut this year. That measure added almost $400 billion to this year’s deficit, CBO says.”

One way to get a handle on how the numbers keep getting larger is to read back through the blog and other materials put online by the Congressional Budget Office, the source of this latest projection.

Here is how CBO’s deficit projection for this fiscal year (which ends Sept. 30) has changed: Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.