Congressional Budget Office: Obama’s Budget Is On An Unsustainable Path
Of course, we’ve been on an unsustainable budgeting path for years now. Decades. Under both Republican and Democrat administrations and Congresses. But Obama has so accelerated the problem that we’re reaching a critical mass, I think, long before many expected.
Today I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Budget Committee about CBO’s most recent analysis of the long-term budget outlook.
Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy.
Just to put this all into visual form for you once again:
Again, I’m not putting a smiley face on pre-Obama spending and deficits. But to deny that Obama has been terribly reckless with our national budget and our tax dollars, and that he shows absolutely no signs of taking his foot off the spending gas pedal, is to deny reality.
Obama and his fellow Democrats need to stop spending. Now. There are a lot of other things they need to do, but they need to do it now. Tags: Uncategorized
