Report: Budget deficit will turn to surplus if Bush's tax cuts expire

[DeepModem Mom]

USAT: Report: Budget deficit will turn to surplus if Bush's tax cuts expire
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON — Making President Bush's tax cuts permanent will prolong big budget deficits into the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office projected Thursday.

But if those tax cuts are allowed to expire after 2010 — effectively a tax increase Bush has sworn to oppose — the budget would begin showing a surplus in 2012, the CBO's budget projections showed. Bush wants Congress to make the tax cuts permanent before he leaves office in 2009.

In its annual budget and economic report, the agency estimated that this year's deficit will be $337 billion, up $19 billion from 2005. It said the deficit will be about $360 billion if extra anticipated costs for Iraq, Afghanistan and the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast are added.

The White House has pegged this year's projected deficit at more than $400 billion, citing the costs of the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. The White House budget office has overestimated the size of the deficit in the past two years by using what it says are “cautious” economic and revenue projections....

***

The long-term budget forecast is gloomier, particularly if Bush and Congress agree to extend the tax cuts. In 2016, the deficit would be nearly $400 billion. Beyond that, the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are projected to rise to a level that “economic growth alone is unlikely to alleviate,” the report says. “A substantial reduction in the growth of spending, and perhaps a sizable increase in taxes as a share of the economy, will be necessary for fiscal stability to be at all likely in the coming decades.”...


http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060127/a_deficit27.art.htm

[gratuitous]

1. So in other words, today's budget deficits

Are directly attributable to the corrupt Bush administration's shoveling the Treasury into the pockets of its overrich friends. Or am I reading this incorrectly? We can't fund health care, enforce environmental regulations, hold mine owners to account, or afford adequate armor for the troops because some millionaires need another chunk of change that they can't (won't) spend anyway?

[underpants]

8. 2/3 of the CURRENT annual debt is due to the tax cuts

you can look it up but I would bank on that being right. Of course this is according to them economicicks and all.

[kurth]

2. Duh!!

[rock]

3. At first I thought that didn't scan

But we're talking about the annual budget deficit not the national debt which will continue for along time. Right?

[DeepModem Mom]

4. I think so. The current national debt: $8,185,315,076,347.87

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

[PunkPop]

5. Yes, the debt is gargantuan.

Running surpluses would only be the first step towards eliminating the debt that exploded under Reagan and Bush I.

[OneBlueSky]

6. 2010??? . . . that's w-a-a-a-a-y too long to wait . . .

those tax cuts need to be rescinded NOW, before the government goes completely bankrupt . . . (financially, that is . . . I understand that it's already morally bankrupt) . . .

[PatsFan2004]

7. What will happen to the economy with less money in the consumer

and investor sector? If the economy starts dragging, won't the tax revenues drop and bring back the deficit.

[trogdor]

10. That's probably factored in.

Having all the tax cuts expire at once would be a shock to the system I doubt many congresspeople want to anticipate.

[cally]

13. These tax cuts are not directed to the best way to stimulate the economy

Tax cuts for folks who spend would help more.

[Inland]

9. Depend on Bush to make sure we see nothing but red ink.

The tax cuts and the deficits are his his legacy, his plan, his vision for America.

[Skink]

11. So we could start more wars just by sunseting the cuts?

look out world here we come.

[cally]

12. Recommended....proof that * economic policies are devastating to

the future of the US economy.