President Obama’s rallying cry for Americans to pull together quickly unravelled today as government economists revealed the biggest budget gap in U.S. history. The weak economy and a new round of tax cuts will push up the U.S. deficit this year to almost $1.5 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At 9.8% of the country’s entire gross domestic product, the staggering amount of debt is one of the largest as a share of the US economy since World War Two.