Posted on 01/26/2011 6:45:05 PM PST by Kaslin
Budget Policy: Of all the disappointments of President Obama's State of the Union speech, none looms as large as his failure to address the fiscal problems. Does he not know it's getting worse, not better?
Just a day after Obama's speech, a new Congressional Budget Office forecast warned that instead of declining by as much as a third of a trillion dollars, as many analysts expected, the federal deficit will actually rise to $1.5 trillion from $1.3 trillion last year and $1.4 trillion the year before.
That $1.5 trillion in 2011 is a record and, at 9.8% of GDP, clearly a level that economists of all stripes would agree is unsustainable.
CBO chief Doug Elmendorf put it succinctly in his official blog: "To prevent debt from becoming unsupportable, the Congress will have to substantially restrain the growth of spending, raise revenues significantly above their historical share of GDP," or some mix of those approaches.
The CBO expects publicly held debt, excluding entitlement debt, to double from last year's $9 trillion, or 62% of GDP, to $18.3 trillion, or 77% of GDP, by 2021.
And even that explosion is "optimistic,"according to a separate analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. It says debt under current budget trends is likely to exceed 92% of GDP by 2021, or nearly $22 trillion.
"Such levels are likely to put America's credit rating at risk, and could lead to an economic crisis within the next few years," the CRFB report concluded.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I’m sure he knew he had to avoid the area of his biggest disappointment to most of the fools who voted for him; it was hardly an oversight.
I keep thinking of the parallel to the fall of the Soviet Union. Nobody will speak the truth in public. It is obvious the President does not have a clue. But where are the other adults? Rush gave credit to Sen. Jim DeMint for putting it succinctly “ You can’t take anything he says seriously”. (Or something like that!)
It's not obama who is missing the point. Was anyone listening to what obama was actually saying during his campaign or were they too busy listening for what they wanted to hear?
With obama, it's better to think outside one's assumptions. Early economic results are in and it looks like obama is right on schedule with his agenda.
Of course he does.
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