New OMB and CBO Reports Show Continuing Current Policies Would Produce Large Deficits — President’s Proposals Would Produce Lower Deficits

By Kathy Ruffing, Paul Van de Water, and James Horney On August 25, both OMB and 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 brief analysis explains what some of the numbers mean. View the full report: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2901 http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-27-09bud.pdf