The mountain is already there, and rising faster than at any time since the 1940s, when the United States was fighting a global war.
Analysts say the current flood of red ink calls into question Obama's ability to launch programs such as middle-class tax cuts and a healthcare overhaul. In 1993, a deficit only a third the size of next year's projected $1 trillion prompted President Clinton to abandoned his campaign pledges of tax cuts.
Once the financial crisis eases, higher interest rates and soaring inflation will be risks. If they materialize, they could dramatically increase the government's borrowing costs to meet its annual debt payments. For consumers, borrowing could become more expensive even as the price of everyday items rise, holding back economic growth.
"We could have a super sub-prime crisis associated with the meltdown of the federal government," warned David Walker, president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former head of the Government Accountability Office.
But even deficit hawks such as Walker acknowledge that the immediate crisis is priority No. 1. Just as with World War II, the government can worry about paying the bills once the enemy is defeated.
"You just throw everything you have at the problem to try to fix it as quickly as you can," said David Stowell, a finance professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "We're mortgaging our future to a certain extent, but we're trying to do things that give us a future."
Washington could wind up spending substantially less than the sum of the commitments. Though the total estimated cost of the government's efforts adds up to $8.5 trillion, only about $3.2 trillion has been tapped, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.
And not all the money committed is direct spending. About $5.5 trillion in loan guarantees and other financial backing by the Federal Reserve is included in the total.
"The only way those commitments would become obligations would be if the economy completely collapsed, in which case it's a whole new ballgame anyway," said John Steele Gordon, a business and economic historian.
The government even stands to make money on some expenditures, such as the $330 billion it has used to buy equity in banks and other financial institutions through the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program.
In the $1.2-billion bailout of Chrysler in 1980, the government ended up gaining $311 million when it sold stock options back to the company three years later.
