Is Obama Feeding us a line of BS?

In 2007, the federal budget deficit was $162 billion (1.2% of gross domestic product). For 2009, the budget deficit is projected to be 11 times larger: $1.752 trillion.

This World War II-like deficit (12.3% of GDP) is not all on President Obama. Much of it is due to policies put in place by President Bush, Hank Paulson and last year's Congress. President Obama's "stimulus" bill will certainly raise the deficit, but, to be fair, it is not the predominant digger of this year's large fiscal hole.

Nonetheless, contrary to the spin of big-government types, these deficits are not just temporary. In fact, the Obama administration uses every trick in the book to convert an understandable and potentially temporary budget lapse this year into a structural lack of fiscal responsibility.

Despite the rosiest economic projections we have possibly ever seen, as well as one of the largest tax hikes in history, President Obama's budget fails to achieve balance at any time in the next decade. The smallest deficit (at least as far as the eye can see) will be $533 billion in 2013. This is amazing, especially when the economic growth forecast is considered. Team Obama suggests that real GDP will grow significantly faster in the years ahead than it has in the past.

To top it off, that $533 billion deficit in 2013 assumes we have largely withdrawn our military from Iraq. In other words, if we look at just domestic spending, the budget deficit is growing even more rapidly.

It is impossible to blame tax cuts for this situation. By 2013, the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 would no longer be in place. In the Obama budget, tax revenue is expected to be 19% of GDP in 2013--a higher share of GDP than in 2007. It doesn't take a rocket scientist at this point to understand that every dime of the increase in the deficit between 2007 and 2013 is due to higher spending, not excessively low taxes on the rich.

One thing to remember about all of these numbers is that they are based on a very "rosy" economic scenario. If the economy falls short of the optimistic assumptions, the deficit will be substantially larger than projected. - Forbes.com