Record breaker

Another month, another record. Ho hum.

The U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in January to a record $68.5 billion, as record imports fueled by high oil prices outstripped record exports propelled by stronger foreign demand, a U.S. Commerce Department report showed on Thursday.

The monthly trade gap swelled 5.3 percent from a revised estimate of $65.1 billion in December. It also surpassed a median forecast of $66.5 billion made by Wall Street analysts.

January's biggest ever monthly deficit follows a record annual trade deficit of $723.6 billion in 2005. The trade gap would easily set a new record, exceeding $800 billion, in 2006 if it continued to run at the pace set in the first month of the year.

You would think that after a budget surplus that was transformed into record deficits in two short years, after tax cuts for the wealthy while troops go without armor for their bodies and their vehicles, after unfunded mandates for education, after an economic recovery that hasn't led to a significant increase in jobs or real wages, analysts, like the rest of us, would know not to underestimate the ability of the Bush administration to mess things up.