Budget Office Sees Deficit at $368 Billion

[BrandonTO416]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ess_budget_dc_5

Budget Office Sees Deficit at $368 Billion

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. budget deficit will reach $368 billion this year before any war costs are added in, the Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites) said on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the worse-than-expected numbers.

The previous CBO forecast called for a $348 billion shortfall for the 2005 fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.

Due to a technical quirk, the latest number does not include billions of dollars needed to fund military operations in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), and analysts said these must be added in to get a true picture of the red ink.

The previous forecast assumed $115 billion of war costs.

"As a result of this technicality, we think it would be prudent to add roughly $100 billion to the CBO's fiscal year 2005 budget deficit estimate," Lehman Brothers said in a research note.

The White House is shortly expected to ask for about $80 billion to pay for war costs.

The CBO numbers also showed an improved outlook for the deficit over the next 10 years, the source said. The agency forecast a cumulative shortfall of $855 billion from 2006 to 2015. That is far better than the agency's last 10-year forecast that totaled $2.3 trillion between 2005 and 2014.

But analysts said this improvement was due to rolling forward the forecast for one year.

"The projected 2015 deficit that is being added is likely to be considerably smaller than the fiscal 2005 deficit that will be tossed out because the budget rules require CBO assume that all the tax cuts sunset (run out) and this leads to a much smaller 2015 deficit," Goldman Sachs said in its research.

Republicans may point to the numbers as evidence that President Bush (news - web sites) is making headway in bringing the deficit down from a record $412 billion in 2004.

The White House last year predicted a deficit of $331 billion for 2005. It does not do 10-year forecasts.

Bush has promised to cut it in half by 2009 from an early-2004 forecast of $521 billion.

But Democrats argue that because the numbers do not include war costs, the cost of extending Bush's tax cuts and any costs involved in Bush's plan to move to a partially private social security system, they do not accurately reflect the outlook.

The dollar has fallen against other currencies since Bush's November re-election as investors fret about the huge budget and current account gap. Foreign officials and some Republicans have called on Bush to put his fiscal house in order.

Republicans say the huge deficit is due to a sluggish economy, costs after Sept. 11, 2001, and of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats blame Bush's tax cuts for turning the budget surplus he inherited into the record deficit.

[BrandonTO416]

This administration has no sense of financial responsibility. Either cut spending (including stopping the war), or raise taxes and get the job done. I hate stupidity.

[Urban_Legend]

That's not a small number! That is a very large number!

[BrandonTO416]

Now the Whitehouse says $412 billion.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...budget_deficits

White House: Deficit Will Hit Record $427B

17 minutes ago White House - AP

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The White House will project that this year's federal deficit will hit $427 billion, a senior administration official said Tuesday, a record amount partly driven by wars in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites).

AP Photo

The official, among three who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the estimate was a conservative one that assumed some higher spending than other analysts use. Last February, the White House projected that the 2004 shortfall would hit $521 billion, only to see it come in at $412 billion.

The official said the figure represented progress because it would be smaller than last year's record $412 billion shortfall when compared to the size of the growing U.S. economy. That ratio is a key measure of the deficit's potency.

"Our projections will show we remain on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009," one of President Bush (news - web sites)'s budget goals, the official told reporters.

Even so, the number was among a blizzard of figures released Tuesday that illustrated how federal deficits remain a problem that Bush and Congress must reckon with.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites) said that thanks to tax cuts and hurricane aid passed since its last calculations in September, the 10-year deficit had worsened since then by $503 billion, not counting war expenditures.

The congressional analysts projected that this year's deficit would hit $368 billion

[Spartan]

These articles don't even say where all that money is going. The numbers listed for the war and its associated expenses are only a small part of that otherwise large number. I'm not trying to condone the deficit here, but I am trying to put some backspin on this article.

[BrandonTO416]

Backspin? These are generic AP newsclips showing reports of how big the deficit for the new fiscal year is!

For crying out loud, you aren't defending the deficit, you are just defending the deficit!

[urban addict 20324]

For them, I guess there's no such thing as fiscal management. If there was, then we wouldn't see the office bleed so much money.

[monsoon]

These articles don't even say where all that money is going. The numbers listed for the war and its associated expenses are only a small part of that otherwise large number. I'm not trying to condone the deficit here, but I am trying to put some backspin on this article.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The war is currrently costing $4.5 billion/week. War costs are being appropriated through emergency funding and is not covered in the above amounts. But they certainly do add to the Nationa Deficit that eventually will have to be paid back by the present and future generations.

To put that number in perspective, this is the amount that it will cost Charlotte over the next 20 years to build out its mass transit system. (5 transit corridors +street cars). It is taking 20 years simply because that is how fast it will take to raise sufficient funds to do so. (That assumes 50% federal funding) If we were not fighting that war, they could have funded this in just 1 week. Because of this shortfall of Federal money, I seriously doubt you will see any other transit systems built in the Carolinas in the next 20 years.

In Bush's first four years, he added the same amount to the National Debt that it took the country 211 years to run up.

[urban addict 20324]

Clinton took 8 years to slow the growth of the national debt to almost zero. Bush 'undid' his efforts soon after he took office. Go to google, seach 'national debt' and there are some websites that have the national debt clock and graphs to show how the national debt grew over the course of US history.

[BrandonTO416]

These facts don't phase Republicans, so maybe it doesn't matter afterall.

[Spartan]

Backspin? These are generic AP newsclips showing reports of how big the deficit for the new fiscal year is!

For crying out loud, you aren't defending the deficit, you are just defending the deficit!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't buy any arguement that the AP is unbiased. They are people with opinions just like everyone else.

The articles you posted do not point out all the facts. The only part of the deficit the article focused on at all was the military costs. There is 80% that is unaccounted for.

I am not defending the deficit. I am saying that there is more crap involved with this money than the war.

I wonder how much pork is involved in this yeard budget? Any new cowgirl halls of fame or indoor rainforests this year?

Clinton took 8 years to slow the growth of the national debt to almost zero. Bush 'undid' his efforts soon after he took office. Go to google, seach 'national debt' and there are some websites that have the national debt clock and graphs to show how the national debt grew over the course of US history.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He did that by raising taxes, which then caused the economy to slow down as he was leaving office. Bush is certainly more fault, but it isn't solely on him.

[monsoon]

....

He did that by raising taxes, which then caused the economy to slow down as he was leaving office. Bush is certainly more fault, but it isn't solely on him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually Clinton can only sign a bill produced by Congress to raise taxes. For most of Clinton's tenure the Congress was Republican dominated. I will note that in terms of the economy, Clinton grew it my tens of millions of jobs and the stock market made spectacular gains. And to be fair, he inherited a disasterious economy that GW Bush's father created.

In contrast, in GW Bush's 5th year, the stock market has not moved at all, and there is still a net loss of more than a million jobs in the country over when the took control in 2000. And what job gains there have been are mostly in jobs directly related to the war or increses in the Federal government. (something that Clinton shrank). Bush is the first President since Hoover where the USA lost jobs during a president's term.

You don't grow an economy by transferring all of your manufacturing base to China, borrowing trillions and sending all of your remaining resources to Iraq. The bad times are only starting unfortunately.

[BrandonTO416]

He did that by raising taxes, which then caused the economy to slow down as he was leaving office. Bush is certainly more fault, but it isn't solely on him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

One of the most lame excuses I've heard, Spartan. Clinton's economic policy was passed in the Spring of 1993 by Democrats in Congress AND Bill Clinton, not 1999. His policy consisted of jacking up the top tax bracket to 39.5% (income above $250,000) and lowering taxes for those on the lower ends of the spectrum. Your comments are about as lame as saying Reagan was responsible for the 1990's boom.

If that's what your reasoning will be, then I'm going to blame every single bit of the corporate corruption on Republicans from the 1980's under Reagan who put forth policies to allow the 1990's to exist.

Of course that's not true, and neither party is responsible. But it stands to reason as well as your reasoning.

I get sick of hearing lame comments like that, because you actually believe it. At that point I get kind of sad.

[Spartan]

This is one of those endless R vs D debates that I refuse to perpetuate any more. I do not have access to enough facts as heckles, so I can't win, not to mention that I am severely out numbered on this site. You can believe what you want heckles.

[monsoon]

This is one of those endless R vs D debates that I refuse to perpetuate any more. I do not have access to enough facts as heckles, so I can't win, not to mention that I am severely out numbered on this site. You can believe what you want heckles.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Spartan, you are absolutely correct about it being an endless debate. I am down on both parties for fudgeing up the country and selling out to the interests. I do blame Bush for the deficit, but I also blame the Democrats in rolling over an letting him do it.

I appreciate everything you said in this thread as we would all be quite boring if we all had the same opinion.