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CBO Update: Trillion-dollar Deficits to Arrive Two Years Sooner

10-4-2018 < Blacklisted News 45 352 words
 

According to the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released on Monday, the U.S. economy is going great guns. But that growth, no matter how robust, will never catch up with government spending. Hence, despite that growth, annual deficits of a trillion dollars will arrive two years sooner than originally projected.


That previous projection, made by the CBO last June, showed a deficit of $563 billion for 2018, rising to $689 billion next year. Now, with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act behind them, the CBO projects this year’s deficit to be $804 billion and next year’s to be just a touch below a trillion dollars, at $981 billion.


The CBO is considered by many to be less partisan than most government entities and as likely to create more accurate projections than those coming from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It covered itself with this disclaimer:


CBO’s projections, especially its economic projections, are even more uncertain this year, because they incorporate estimates of the economic effects of the recent changes in fiscal policy [the tax reform bill] — and those estimates are themselves uncertain.



Translation: We’re essentially clueless as to the impact Trump’s tax reform law will have in the future, and so “we formulate projections that fill in the middle … of possible outcomes.”


One outcome is certain: Government spending is running away from government revenues, with no relief in sight. Consider: The federal government is slated to spend $4.1 trillion this year, with $2.5 trillion (61 percent) on entitlements (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, and other “transfer” payments). In 10 years, according to the CBO, the government will be spending $7 trillion a year, with $4.5 trillion of that on entitlements (64 percent). Put another way: Entitlements will grow from $2.5 trillion today to $4.5 trillion in 10 years. That’s a jump of 80 percent.


And interest payments, which are expected to total $241 billion in fiscal year 2018, will leap, according to the CBO, to nearly a trillion dollars annually in 10 years.


Reprinted with permission from TheNewAmerican.com.


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