I think I just got carpel tunnel typing that number. Will that massive deficit number stop the dimwits in DC? Nooooo.
President Barack Obama on Monday stressed the importance of enacting health-care legislation as a way to bring down long-term deficits. A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, Kenneth Baer, termed health-care reform “the key to our fiscal future.”
But some budget watchdogs worry that Congress eventually could pass health-care legislation that relies on uncertain long-term savings, while substantially increasing short-term government expenditures.
The Obama administration in May estimated that the annual deficit would hit about $1.84 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, an increase from February’s projection of $1.75 trillion. The administration also slightly revised upward its deficit estimates for 2010 and 2011, to $1.26 trillion and $929 billion, respectively.
Slumping tax receipts, particularly from corporations and individual investors, have contributed substantially to the widening gap, as has rising spending on social safety-net programs, economic-stimulus measures and aid to auto and financial companies.
By historical standards, the 2009 deficit — at 13% or more of the country’s gross domestic product — would be the U.S.’s biggest since the end of World War II in 1945, when it reached 21.5%.
No worries though, the Dems will just tax the rich or something. Yeah.
