Bad news for Dr. Evil fans: the days of a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR deficit are over. In fact, the deficit is falling fast.

Some readers may recall the ridicule heaped on the people at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities when they produced estimates suggesting that any notion of a debt/deficit crisis was all wrong. It’s turning out, however, that they were probably overestimating debt growth. The deficit is fading, and debt as a medium-term (meaning up to 10 years) issue has largely gone away.

This is not good news — or not unambiguously good news, at any rate. A deficit falling to probably less than 5 percent of GDP this year and well below that next year is MUCH TOO LOW for an economy whose private sector is still engaged in a vicious circle of deleveraging.

Oh, by the way, it is now 26 months since Bowles and Simpson predicted a US fiscal crisis within two years.