When asked to explain the largest budget deficits in the history of the world, President Bush generally relies on a series of unpersuasive excuses, starting with the economic downturn that turned into a recession shortly after he took office in 2001.
The New York Times reported today on a report from nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that explained that this claim, like most of Bush’s assertions about the economy, simply isn’t true.
[A] report released on Monday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that economic weakness would account for only 6 percent of a budget shortfall that could reach a record $500 billion this year.
Next year, the agency predicted, faster economic growth will actually increase tax revenues even as the deficit remains at a relatively high level of $374 billion.
The new numbers confirm what many analysts have predicted for some time: that budget deficits in the decade ahead will stem less from the lingering effects of the downturn and much more from rising government spending and progressively deeper tax cuts.
So what, pray tell, is the principal cause of these enormous deficits, which will ultimately add $1 trillion to the national debt every other year for the rest of the decade? As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently explained it’s — surprise, surprise — Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy that are the “single largest way policymakers have increased deficits.”