Feature Story

March 28, 2009

Statement of Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, on the New Report From the Congressional Budget Office

From Center on Budget:

Today’s disturbing report from the Congressional Budget Office projects larger budget deficits over the next ten years than the President’s budget estimates, mainly because the economy is weaker than the Obama Administration and many private forecasters projected just a few months ago.

These findings should send two messages to policymakers: First, they should not make the recession, which CBO now projects will be the worst since World War II, even deeper by reducing federal expenditures in 2010 well below the levels that President Obama has proposed. Doing so would result in less demand for goods and services at a time when the CBO report makes clear the economy will continue to need a large boost. Second, policymakers should adopt measures now –- to take effect when the economy recovers –- to begin addressing the vast projected deficits of future years and decades and moving us off a fiscally unsustainable path.

The new CBO figures also underscore the need for policymakers not to go beyond the President’s proposals for extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and for making the estate tax permanent at its 2009 parameters.

Read more from this post.