The U.S. federal deficit will grow by $800 billion more than previously estimated over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported Wednesday.
The prime causes are “two legislative packages approved this year, pushing the nation further into levels of debt unseen since the end of World War II,” says the Washington Post.
The deficit will reach $960 billion for the 2019 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, and $1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year, the CBO says — about $180 billion more, combined, than the agency projected earlier this year.
The higher deficit projections result from sluggish growth in federal revenue following Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, plus bipartisan agreements to raise military and domestic discretionary spending.
“Typically, the budget deficit shrinks when unemployment is low. Mr. Trump’s administration has defied that trend,” says the New York Times.
“Trump pledged to eliminate the federal debt during the 2016 campaign,” notes CNN, quoting CBO director Phill Swagel as saying the federal debt, “already high by historical standards, is on an unsustainable course.”
By the end of next decade, America’s federal debt will about equal the entire nation’s economy (Gross Domestic Product), according to the Post.
Trump’s “indifference to deficits has shattered his campaign promise to not only balance the budget, but to pay off the entire national debt. And it has left his fellow Republicans, who won deficit-reduction measures under President Barack Obama at a cost to what was still a fragile economic recovery, in a bind,” the Times says.
