The Citizens for Tax Justice has an interesting position paper on the outcomes of Bush’s policies.
These starting deficit figures differ markedly from the often-cited, but unrealistic “baseline” projections that CBO is legally required to produce—but which, as CBO points out, “are not intended to be predictions of future budgetary outcomes.” CBO outlines (and quantifies) several plausible adjustments:
- Assume that spending on the war in Iraq will gradually wind down over the next several years (reducing the 2006-16 “baseline” deficit projections by $0.4 trillion).
- Expect that other appropriations will keep up with the growth in the economy (adding $1.4 trillion to the deficit projections).
- Measure the effects of extending expiring tax cuts, most notably the President’s tax reductions that are currently scheduled to expire after 2010 (adding $2.9 trillion to the deficit projections).
The resulting $8.5 trillion in projected borrowing reflects deficits in the regular federalbudget, including an expected $2.8 trillion to be borrowed from Social Security over the upcoming decade under the President’s policies.
Now part of that $8.5 trillion ($2.77 trillion in fact) is from counting money from the Social Security over collection. Counting that as a negative would have meant the Clinton didn’t run surpluses. Still, by spending that money now (i.e. investing the money in government bonds) means that that money will have to be raised in the future via taxes when the Social Security revenues go red.
Personally, I’d like to see big reductions in spending, not tax increases. Not that I expect this current generations of Republicans to actually pursue this kind of a policy. Nope, the Republicans seem to find that yummy salty pork quite tasty.
