The New York Post features our own John Hinderaker’s column “Bam’s $2 trillion Friday surprise.” John’s column takes off from the Obama administration’s leaked announcement last Friday that it will revise its projection of the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years from $7 trillion to $9 trillion: “That $2 trillion upward revision will put the White House’s numbers in line with the $9.1 trillion deficit that the Congressional Budget Office projected in June. Back then, the administration criticized CBO’s analysis; now it’s admitting that CBO was right after all.” John adds:
[N]early everyone believes that the administration’s projections are still too optimistic. They assume rates of economic growth that are nowhere in prospect and project that the federal government will — somehow — contain spending on health care even as it takes on ever-expanding responsibility for that sector and adds millions to the Medicaid rolls.
Fiscal bad news seems destined to continue. The New York Times reported Monday that in 2009 the federal government will auction off $8 trillion in Treasury securities — up from $5.5 trillion in 2008 — an average of $253,000 per second. And OMB now projects federal debt held by the public to skyrocket past 60 percent of gross domestic product — a level last reached during World War II.
Does the rest of the world (principally China) have an unlimited appetite for American debt? The Obama administration intends to find out.
The Obama administration’s fiscal mismanagement is a key component of the recklessness that we have sought to highlight here. John’s column brings much-needed attention to Friday’s surprise.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.