Today’s CBO Report: What Does It Mean? | Power Line: "Reporting on the CBO’s summer update has largely been positive, focusing on the fact that the report projects $3.5 trillion in deficits over the next ten years, compared with the $7 trillion it forecasted in January. As always, however, projections for the out-years are more or less meaningless. Of more immediate significance is that the FY 2011 deficit will amount to $1.3 trillion, the third trillion-dollar-plus deficit in a row. The CBO assumes, as it must, that the spending cuts mandated by the Budget Control Act will actually happen in future years, when in fact future Congresses can spend whatever they want. Moreover, as Elmendorf points out, the CBO numbers also assume that current law remains unchanged, which means that all the Bush tax cuts expire, no “doc fix” is adopted, and the alternative minimum tax is allowed to crush middle-income taxpayers. None of these things will happen."
Never mind their ridiculous growth projections in the out years. Ugghh. RTWT.
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