CBO: Obama budget deepens debt by $3.5 trillion
Washington Times
President Obama’s budget would pile up an additional $3.5 trillion in debt over the next 10 years and shows the government’s trust funds running out of money in 2020, Congress’s official non-partisan scorekeeper said Friday.
In 2012 alone Mr. Obama’s budget would leave a $1.3 trillion deficit — $82 billion worse than if none of his policies were enacted. Over the next ten years the deficit would dip to less than a half-trillion dollars in 2017, but would rise again in the later years.
By 2022, a decade from now, the federal government would spend $5.6 trillion and take in $4.9 trillion in revenue — both figures far outstripping today’s levels.
CBO’s analysis also shows the government’s combined trust funds, including the Social Security trust funds and the cash flow of the Postal Service, will begin running deficits in 2020.
Mr. Obama released his budget last month, but it has received scant attention on Capitol Hill, where both Republicans and Democrats have ignored it. It proposed a mixture of new tax increases and tax cuts, and called for some new spending, particularly in education and infrastructure, but mostly left the entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security untouched.
House Republicans are pushing to write their own budget that would address the costs of those major programs. CBO’s analysis on Friday said the programs will continue to eat up an ever-larger share of government spending over the next decade, rising from $2.1 trillion in spending this year to $3.4 trillion in a decade.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has said he doesn’t want to take up a budget in his chamber.
He says last year’s debt deal already set levels for the annual spending bills to meet, so no budget is necessary.
That debt deal did not address the long-term increases in mandatory spending programs.
CBO: Obama budget produces 2013 deficit of $977B
CBS News/ AP
WASHINGTON — A new analysis of President Barack Obama’s budget for next year says the deficit scenario next year isn’t as rosy as the administration painted it.
The Congressional Budget Office says tax revenues for the 2013 budget year were over-estimated and thus was the projected $901 billion deficit. It says the figure is $977 billion.
For the current 2012 budget year, CBO says Obama’s policies would generate a $1.25 trillion deficit. That’s actually $74 billion better than the White House forecast.
The differences aren’t unusual and generally are caused by CBO’s less optimistic view of the economy over the next couple of years. The White House forecasts higher income and corporate profits.
Overall, CBO says Obama’s budget would generate somewhat lower deficits over the coming decade than the White House predicts.