CBPP: "President’s Proposals would Produce Lower Deficits than Continuing Current Policies"

President’s Proposals would Produce Lower Deficits than Continuing Current Policies

On August 25, both the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released updated budget projections. Some observers, comparing OMB’s estimate of the deficit over the next ten years under the President’s proposed policies ($9.1 trillion) to CBO’s “baseline” estimate of the deficit under current law ($7.1 trillion), jumped to the conclusion that the President proposes to increase the deficit dramatically. In fact, the opposite is true. The President’s proposals would produce significantly lower deficits over the next ten years than continuing current policies.

This and other confusions have occurred because both the OMB and CBO reports are chock-full of numbers that are hard for even seasoned budget-watchers — and almost impossible for ordinary citizens — to interpret. This brief analysis explains what some of the numbers mean, how CBO’s official baseline must be adjusted to show what CBO’s estimate of deficits would be if it assumed current policies are continued, and why even that adjusted baseline should not be compared with OMB’s estimate of deficits under the President’s policies.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2901

there.

they are still stuck on some old CBO report that was used to beat health care reform nearly to death.