CBO Delivers Bad Budget News

[UpInArms]

Source: Courthouse News Service

WASHINGTON (CN) - As lawmakers rush to raise the debt ceiling and the Obama administration tries to tighten its belt, the Congressional Budget Office predicted Tuesday that the 2010 fiscal year would bring a towering $1.35 trillion deficit, which is slightly lower than last year. An expected decade of deficits will take the national debt from just over $12 trillion now to more than $21 trillion by 2020, said the budget office report.

While the independent budget office lauded the stimulus package and other government recovery efforts - which Republicans have decried as expensive and useless - for moderating the severity and length of the recession, it continued to predict a slow economic recovery.

The expected 2010 deficit is slightly smaller than the $1.4 trillion of the 2009 fiscal year, which ended in September, but it still constitutes a hefty 9 percent chunk of the 2010 gross domestic product.

2009 saw the largest proportion of deficit to economic output since World War II, at nearly 10 percent.

Read more: http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/01/26/24071.htm