Monday, May 11, 2009

White House Predicts Budget Deficit To Grow To $1.84 Trillion This Year

The record figure surpasses the $1.75 trillion projected earlier in the year. Obama administration points to the nation's financial crisis in explaining updated numbers.
By Mark Silva 8:06 AM PDT, May 11, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- The annual budget deficit will surpass $1.8 trillion this year -- a runaway new record in the gulf between what the federal government spends and what it collects -- the White House's Office of Management and Budget reported this morning.

This is slightly larger than the $1.75-trillion deficit the Obama administration projected for the 2009 budget year ending in September when the president entered office in February. His budget office today pegged the 2009 deficit at $1.84 trillion.
At the same time, President Barack Obama is standing by a pledge to cut the deficit by more than half by the end of his term.

The projected deficit for 2012 stands at $557 billion in the new report, which still will represent a larger dollar figure than any deficit the former administration projected in setting its own records during the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency.

The new record deficit this year -- driven by the federal government's efforts at bailing out financial institutions and automakers, the $787-billion economic stimulus act that Congress approved one month into Obama's term and slumping federal tax revenue -- will amount to 12.9% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.

Both this year's deficit of $1.84 trillion and the $1.25 trillion deficit that the Obama administration is forecasting for the 2010 budget year that starts in October -- projected at 8.5% of GDP -- are higher than what the budget office projected in February.

"The deficits in these years, now projected to be 12.9% and 8.5% of GDP, respectively, are driven in large part by the economic crisis inherited by this administration," the Office of Management and Budget reported today, in delivering the final documents of the administration's proposed 2010 budget to Capitol Hill.

"Treasury now estimates that overall federal revenue will be less than was projected in February by between $30 billion and $50 billion in each of this year and next," the OMB reports. "We also have more information about the severity of the financial crisis facing the nation, and this is reflected in new, higher estimates for the cost of financial stabilization efforts undertaken."

The president's budget office today projected that the deficit will slide from $1.84 trillion this year to $1.25 trillion in 2010, to $929 billion in 2011, to $557 billion in 2012 and to $512 billion in 2013.

As a percentage of GDP, considered by experts as a better measure of the deficit's impact on the economy, it is projected to slide from 12.9% to 8.5% next year. And it is projected to slide to 6% in 2011, 3.4% in 2012 and 2.9% in 2013.

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