The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the February deficit totaled $220.9 billion, 14 percent higher than the previous record set in February of last year.

The deficit through the first five months of this budget year totals $651.6 billion, 10.5 percent higher than a year ago.

The Obama administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2010 budget year will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, surpassing last year's $1.4 trillion total. The administration is forecasting that the deficit will remain above $1 trillion in 2011, giving the country three straight years of $1 trillion-plus deficits.

The administration says the huge deficits are necessary to get the country out of the deepest recession since the 1930s. But Republicans have attacked the stimulus spending as wasteful and a failure at the primary objective of lowering unemployment.

The administration defends the economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in February 2009 with a price tag at the time of $787 billion as the right medicine to get the economy back on its feet. President Barack Obama has said even more is needed to battle an unemployment rate that remained stuck in February at 9.7 percent.

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The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a new monthly report, said despite three separate bailouts totaling $17.2 billion, GMAC Financial Services continues to struggle with its troubled mortgage liabilities.

"The panel remains unconvinced that bankruptcy was not a viable option in 2008," it said in the report. "In connection with the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcies, Treasury might have been able to orchestrate a strategic bankruptcy for GMAC."

The watchdog group said such a bankruptcy restructuring could have preserved GMAC's core automotive lending functions while hiving off Residential Capital, its mortgage lending business, which remains a "millstone" around the company's neck. A bankruptcy, and perhaps merging GMAC back into GM, could have put the lender on a sounder footing, the panel said.

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"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

"The consumer needs to make their own health choices. Just as doctors and the occasional visit to a hospital can't truly control how a person chooses to maintain their health, neither can chefs nor the occasional visit to a restaurant," said Jeff Nathan, the executive chef and co-owner of Abigael's on Broadway. "Modifying trans fats and sodium intake needs to be home based for optimal health. Regulating restaurants will not solve this health issue."

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The federal government has spent the past half year seeking to roll back its emergency efforts at propping up the financial markets — with the notable exception of its involvement in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As the government has pledged more and more money to cover the companies' losses, it has assured the public that planning was underway for overhauling the firms so the bailouts would end. As recently as December, the Obama administration said it expected to release a preliminary report on how to remake Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac around Feb. 1.

But no plan was produced, and in response to questions from lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner clarified last month that it would be another year before the government proposes how to restructure the firms.

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