Budget deficit will turn to surplus if Bush's tax cuts expire

[papau]

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060127/a_deficit27.art.htm

Report: Budget deficit will turn to surplus if Bush's tax cuts expire
By Richard Wolf
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — <snip>But if those tax cuts are allowed to expire after 2010 — effectively a tax increase Bush has sworn to oppose — the budget would begin showing a surplus in 2012, the CBO's budget projections showed. Bush wants Congress to make the tax cuts permanent before he leaves office in 2009.<snip>

The White House has pegged this year's projected deficit at more than $400 billion, citing the costs of the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. The White House budget office has overestimated the size of the deficit in the past two years by using what it says are “cautious” economic and revenue projections.

<snip>The long-term budget forecast is gloomier, particularly if Bush and Congress agree to extend the tax cuts. In 2016, the deficit would be nearly $400 billion. Beyond that, the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are projected to rise to a level that “economic growth alone is unlikely to alleviate,” the report says. “A substantial reduction in the growth of spending, and perhaps a sizable increase in taxes as a share of the economy, will be necessary for fiscal stability to be at all likely in the coming decades.”

The non-partisan budget office also said the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit could cost $979 billion in the 10 years from 2007 through 2016. Last year, the administration put the figure at $720 billion for the years 2006 to 2015. The increase is mostly due to projections that more people will use the subsidized program.

[liberal N proud]

1. They won't let facts and figures get in the way of providing

welfare to the rich and corporate dogs

[RobertSeattle]

2. Democrats should Wedge issue this

Let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire but keep the tax cuts for the middle class.

[papau]

4. I agree :-)

:-)

[NativeTexan]

3. I am 50 yrs old now with no small children at home....

....and my wife and I saw our taxes go UP starting with the FIRST year of the Bush tax "cuts" and every year since!!