Republican leaders in Washington say they’re committed to reducing the federal budget deficit and will cut it in half, but an analysis suggests their plans would actually make the deficit bigger than if Congress and the White House simply did nothing.The White House and Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate have offered budget proposals that inflate the deficit over the next five years by $179 billion to $294 billion compared with the deficit forecast by congressional budget analysts.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the non-partisan agency that analyzes budgets for Congress, projected in January that the deficit over the next five years would total about $1.1 trillion. That assumes the economy improves and temporary tax cuts phase out on schedule. But GOP budget proposals, which call for extending the tax cuts and increasing some spending substantially, would generate a five-year deficit of as much as $1.3 trillion or more.
Those numbers — all of which exclude spending for Iraq — almost certainly understate the deficit gap. The White House didn’t include spending for Iraq in its 2005-09 budget, even though the United States is likely to spend billions more during that period to stabilize that nation, money that will almost certainly make the deficit even bigger.
Absolutely shocking.
