Bush Budget Makes Deficit Cuts 'Difficult'-CBO Head

[struggle4progress]

By Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Bush's new $2.57 trillion budget makes cutting the deficit a "very difficult exercise" because it relies on cuts in a fraction of overall government spending, the director of the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday. <snip>

The CBO's baseline deficit forecast for the 2006 fiscal year is $295 billion, excluding the costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The office will release a report in March on Bush's budget and how it affects their non-partisan forecast.

Holtz-Eakin would not characterize how that forecast would change, though he said that factoring in war costs would "easily" move the existing CBO deficit forecast to the mid-$300 billion range.

The White House is forecasting a third straight record fiscal shortfall of $427 billion this year, including war costs. The deficit will shrink to $251 billion in 2008, according to Bush's plan, but that is without spending on Iraq and Afghanistan or social security. <snip>

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7598529

[w4rma]

1. Bush Budget does not cut the Deficit at all (nt)

[Massacure]

2. Bushit needs to stop beating around the bush.

Any deficit is bad, even if it is only half of what it is now.

[jayctravis]

3. We're spending 76 kadrillion dollars on the war.

Which is a big chunk of stuff we have to pay for. Then there's this other big chunk of roughly equal size which is the entirety of other government programs.

"Cut it in half?" Oh yes, let's trim the unecessary fat out of what we need to do in our own country. Heaven for-BID they can't build an embassy in Iraq.