Deficit

The federal budget deficit has surged to an all-time high of $1.42 trillion as the recession caused tax revenues to plunge while the government was spending massive amounts to stabilize the financial system and jump-start the economy.

The imbalance for the budget year ended Sept. 30, more than tripled last year's record. The Obama administration projects deficits will total $9.1 trillion over the next decade unless corrective action is taken.

As a portion of the economy, the budget deficit stood at 10 percent, the highest since World War II, according to government data released Friday...

WASHINGTON -- Confronted with big job losses and no sign the U.S. economy is ready to stand on its own, Democrats are working on a growing list of relief efforts, leaving for later how to pay for them, or whether even to bother.

Proposals include extending and perhaps expanding a popular tax credit for first-time home buyers, and creating a new credit for companies that add jobs. Taken together, the proposals look a lot like another economic stimulus package, though congressional leaders don't want to call it that.

Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House say they have no appetite for another big spending package that adds to the federal budget deficit, which hit a record $1.4 trillion for the budget year that ended last week.

But with unemployment reaching nearly 10 percent, many lawmakers are feeling pressure to act...

The Heritage Foundation is questioning the latest Congressional Budget Office estimates concerning the Senate version of healthcare reform, labeling the report "a devastating revelation."

According to latest estimates, the Senate version -- authored by Max Baucus (D-Montana) -- will cost a little over $800 billion over a ten-year period and even shave a little off the federal deficit. But policy analyst Dennis Smith with The Heritage Foundation is skeptical of the claims.

"They don't count Medicare spending," Smith points out. "Everyone in Washington, including the chairman, has said he wants to fix the Medicare physician fee schedule -- that is not done. So that would have cost $200 billion -- that was put off.

"They have not counted additional spending under the State Children Health Insurance Program [S-CHIP], so they haven't funded that"...

WASHINGTON -- Congressional analysts say the U.S. government ran a $1.4 trillion budget deficit for the 2009 fiscal year that ended last week.

The flood of red ink smashes previous records and flows from several factors, including a big drop in tax revenues due to the recession, $245 billion in emergency spending on the Wall St. bailout and the takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and almost $200 billion in costs from President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill.

The previous record deficit was $459 billion and was set just last year...

Washington (AP) - President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars.

The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance...

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden proclaimed success beyond expectations Thursday for the $787 billion economic stimulus, but his glowing assessment overlooks many of the program's problems, including delays in releasing money, questionable spending priorities and project picks that are under investigation.

In a speech aimed squarely at Republican criticism and public skepticism over the costly program's effectiveness, Biden said accomplishments over the past 100 days provide proof of promises kept when he and President Barack Obama began rolling out the plan earlier this year.

"The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected," he said...

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s mid-year budget update, which anticipates $9.05 trillion in cumulative deficits over 10 years, includes $622 billion in purported health care “savings” that the administration claims will go toward offsetting the cost of its government-oriented health reform plans. The budget update leaves out, however, any estimate of how much those reforms might cost.

The new, updated budget review includes new estimates about how much the administration thinks it will save taxpayers by making various cuts and reforms to Medicare and Medicaid.

“[T]his Mid-Session Review now identifies a total of $622 billion in savings over 10 years in Medicare and Medicaid,” the report states. “This brings the Health Reserve Fund total to $954 billion over 10 years.”  read more »

(CNSNews.com) - A budget review released by the White House on Tuesday says that President Obama has “reoriented the Nation back to a path toward fiscal discipline” and then reveals that the administration is planning for the federal government to run cumulative deficits over the next decade of $9.05 trillion, meaning the average annual federal deficit will be $905 billion.

The figures were calculated by the White House Office of Management and Budget and published in a document entitled, “Mid-Session Review—Budget of the U.S. Government—Fiscal Year 2010.”

“Despite the demands put on the treasury to respond aggressively to avoid economic collapse, the President in February put forward a Budget that re-oriented the Nation back to a path toward fiscal discipline,” says the review...

Washington (AP) - In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion -- more than the sum of all previous deficits since America's founding. And it says by the next decade's end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

But before President Barack Obama can do much about it, he'll have to weather recession aftershocks including unemployment that his advisers said Tuesday is still heading for 10 percent.

Overall, White House and congressional budget analysts said in a brace of new estimates that the economy will shrink by 2.5 to 2.8 percent this year even as it begins to climb out of the recession. Those estimates reflect this year's deeper-than-expected economic plunge...

WASHINGTON – The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade, White House officials predicted Tuesday in a fiscal assessment far bleaker than what the Obama administration had estimated just a few months ago.

Figures released by the White House budget office foresee a cumulative $9 trillion deficit from 2010-2019, $2 trillion more than the administration estimated in May. Moreover, the figures show the public debt doubling by 2019 and reaching three-quarters the size of the entire national economy...