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Can anyone dispute this? What happened to the deficit hawks from the republican party?
Quote:
For six straight years, Americans watched their government's borrowing shrink.
Then last month, that trend towards less and less borrowing suddenly came to an end. Congress overwhelmingly passed a federal budget that included a $680 billion tax-cut package, which President Obama signed.
Now the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the federal deficit is set to jump 24 percent, to $544 billion, in this fiscal year. That's up from last year's $439 billion deficit.
Underlying problem: Both parties wanna increase spending on something. Democrats wanna increase spending on social programs and saving the poor, the whales, the dolphins, the polar bears, the ticks, the leeches, the mosquitos everything else under the sun. The Republicans wanna triple our spending on defense.
So which of these has any chance in hell of actually balancing a budget? None of the above.
While I disagree with that I do believe tax cuts should me matched to spending cuts and tax increases should accompany spending increases. It is too easy to run deficits otherwise. I think 1/3rd of Americans want tax cuts and spending cuts, 1/3rd want increased spending with increased taxes and 1/3rd want both. This latter third is what is responsible for deficits.
Did you even read the CBO document that NPR wrote the article from? The two sound nothing alike!
CBO projects revenue to increase 4% in 2016.
Of the $544 projected deficit, $43 billion is due to a calendar shift. Got exactly zero to do with tax legislation.
In fact, the CBO estimated that only "a large part" of $130 billion of the $544 billion projected deficit was due to the tax legislature, which extended tax cuts already in place, but made them retroactive to January 1, 2015, because congress hadn't gotten around to extending them when they were supposed to.
The only tax 'cuts' I'm aware of are certain Obamacare taxes which were deferred - by the administration, not Congress or the republicans.
Did you even read the CBO document that NPR wrote the article from? The two sound nothing alike!
CBO projects revenue to increase 4% in 2016.
Of the $544 projected deficit, $43 billion is due to a calendar shift. Got exactly zero to do with tax legislation.
In fact, the CBO estimated that only "a large part" of $130 billion of the $544 billion projected deficit was due to the tax legislature, which extended tax cuts already in place, but made them retroactive to January 1, 2015, because congress hadn't gotten around to extending them when they were supposed to.
The only tax 'cuts' I'm aware of are certain Obamacare taxes which were deferred - by the administration, not Congress or the republicans.
Gotta be careful about believing NPR...
I'm glad you mentioned that. There is a lot in that article to consider besides just what I, or you quoted.
Quote:
Growing Deficits Are Projected to Drive Up Debt
In CBO’s baseline projections (which incorporate the assumption that current laws will generally remain the same), growth in spending—particularly for Social Security, health care, and interest payments on federal debt—outpaces growth in revenues over the coming 10 years. The budget deficit increases modestly through 2018 but then starts to rise more sharply, reaching $1.4 trillion in 2026. As a percentage of GDP, the deficit remains at roughly 2.9 percent through 2018, starts to rise, and reaches 4.9 percent by the end of the 10-year projection period. The projected cumulative deficit between 2017 and 2026 is $9.4 trillion.
The projected deficits would push debt held by the public up to 86 percent of GDP by the end of the 10-year period, a little more than twice the average over the past five decades. Beyond the 10-year period, if current laws remained in place, the pressures that had contributed to rising deficits during the baseline period would accelerate and push debt up even more sharply. Three decades from now, for instance, debt held by the public is projected to equal 155 percent of GDP, a higher percentage than any previously recorded in the United States.
Such high and rising debt would have serious negative consequences for the budget and the nation:
When interest rates increased from their current levels to more typical ones, federal spending on interest payments would rise substantially.
Because federal borrowing reduces total saving in the economy over time, the nation’s capital stock would ultimately be smaller than it would be if debt was smaller, and productivity and total wages would be lower.
Lawmakers would have less flexibility to use tax and spending policies to respond to unexpected challenges.
The likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States would increase. There would be a greater risk that investors would become unwilling to finance the government’s borrowing needs unless they were compensated with very high interest rates; if that happened, interest rates on federal debt would rise suddenly and sharply.
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