Does this call for a Trump Twitter tirade?
The CBO is out with their budget outlook and they’re predicting the deficit will hit $1 trillion in 2020, two years ahead of previous estimates.
Their forecast for fiscal year 2018 calls for a budget shortfall of $804 billion. That compares to $563 billion in their June report.
And look, you know what’s changed since then, right? If not, let the CBO explain (and yes, everyone knows the debt was rising before Trump, but at some point people are going to have to come to terms with the fact that his policies are a road to fiscal ruin and represent a complete abandonment of the GOP’s traditional adherence to fiscal rectitude):
Federal debt is projected to be on a steadily rising trajectory throughout the coming decade. Debt held by the public, which has doubled in the past 10 years as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), approaches 100 percent of GDP by 2028 in CBO’s projections. That amount is far greater than the debt in any year since just after World War II.
Moreover, if lawmakers changed current law to maintain certain current policies–preventing a significant increase in individual income taxes in 2026 and drops in funding for defense and nondefense discretionary programs in 2020, for example–the result would be even larger increases in debt.
Projected deficits over the 2018—2027 period have increased markedly since June 2017, when CBO issued its previous projections. The increase stems primarily from tax and spending legislation enacted since then– especially Public Law 115-97 (originally called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and called the 2017 tax act in this report), the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (P.L. 115-123), and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (P.L. 115- 141). The legislation has significantly reduced revenues and increased outlays anticipated under current law.
They do acknowledge that the new laws will boost growth, but the effects are of course transitory. Here are their projections for key economic indicators:
You can read the entire report for yourself below, but do note that all of this would appear to underscore the notion that the U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path and no matter who you want to blame for what came before, Donald Trump is driving the country further down that same path in a myopic pursuit of short-term gains designed solely to help him deliver on campaign promises that were the very definition of far-fetched.
