Long-Term Deficit Projections Worsen
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| Tue, 09-07-2004 - 2:43pm |
By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 7, 2004; 11:38 AM
A recovery in corporate taxation has modestly improved the federal government's short-run deficit, but the long-term deficit has only grown worse during the past six months, thanks largely to an anticipated surge in government spending, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said today.
The deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, will reach $422 billion, a record in dollar terms but a $56 billion improvement from CBO's forecast in January. The government, however, is now expected to accumulate debt of nearly $2.3 trillion during the next decade, the CBO said. That total is $281 billion higher than the last CBO forecast. The budget office anticipates that the total federal debt held by the public will balloon from $4.3 trillion this year to nearly $6.8 trillion in 2014.
That total may prove to be optimistic. It assumes that all of President Bush's tax cuts will expire by 2011, although Bush and congressional Republicans have vowed to extend them permanently. If they succeed, the extensions would tack at least $1.5 trillion to the debt through 2014, the CBO report said.
The alternative minimum tax, which was created to ensure the wealthy pay income taxes but which will increasingly ensnare the middle class, will present another strain on the deficit. Reforming the tax -- which both political parties say is a priority -- would cost the government another $425 billion over the next 10 years, CBO said.

Anyhooo.. I think the spending needs to be curtailed on needless projects as a first step to bring the defecit under control.
You mean "needless projects" like invading a country, killing thousands of innocent people and sparking a new holy war in an otherwise secular country?
The War on Terror is a necessity, and those that do not think so live in the dark ages.
Look at what has happened across Europe to the countries that did not want to take a fight to the terrorists, they end up fighting the battle anyway, in their own backyard however.