U.S. Budget and Economy

In my prior post , I quoted this link which stated that "the near-term balanced budget projections are illusory" for four reasons. The third reason was that the "Administration projections assume unrealistic deep cuts in nondefense discretionary programs that fund infrastructure, education, public health, disaster relief". This has not been the first time that the Bush Administration has projected deep cuts in outlays that never came to pass. The following graph shows federal receipts and outlays as a percent of GDP since 1980: The actual numbers and sources are here . The red and black lines show the outlays and receipts from the most recent budget, the one for fiscal year 2009. The portions of these lines from 2008 on (to the right of the dotted line) are projections from the 2009 budget. The orange, yellow, green, sky blue, blue, indigo, and violet lines show the projections from the 2008 through 2002 budget, respectively. As can be seen from the red line,...

On July 28th, the Office of Management and Budget released the Mid-Session Review of the U.S. Budget for fiscal year 2009. The following table summarizes updated projections of the deficit and debt from that document, both in billions of dollars and as a percent of GDP: RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, DEFICITS, AND DEBTS (billions of dollars) Actual Estimate 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 =========================== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== Receipts................... 2568 2553 2651 2916 3084 3288 3439 Outlays.................... 2730 2942 3133 3094 3187 3230 3410 --------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Unified deficit(-)/surplus. -162 -389 -482 -178 -103 58 29 On-budget deficit.......... -343 -574 -663 -378 -321 -168 -172 Gross federal deficit...... -499 -672 -815 -505 -482 -375 -38...