White House predicts fiscal year to end at $1.2T deficit

GOP says president failed to deliver on first-term promise.

WASHINGTON — The White House predicts this year’s federal budget deficit will end up at $1.2 trillion, marking the fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits during President Barack Obama’s administration.

The predicted deficit for the 2012 budget year, which ends Sept. 30, actually improved by $116 billion. The White House also predicted next year’s deficit will fall just short of $1 trillion, higher than predicted in its February budget release.

The White House promises deficits will drop to about 3 percent of the size of the economy by 2017, in part through $1.5 trillion in tax increases in the coming decade.

The White House report released Friday again trumpets Obama’s longstanding approach to tackling the deficit. It includes tax increases on families earning above $250,000, already enacted “caps” on agency operating budgets and modest savings from federal benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

“Since taking office, the president has worked to restore fiscal responsibility,” the Office of Management and Budget report says.

Republicans scoffed, noting that Obama has violated his promise to wrestle the deficit in half by the end of his term.

“The president’s string of broken promises on our nation’s fiscal challenges weighs heavy on an anemic economy,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “The president’s commitment to ever-higher government spending and his failure to deliver on his economic promises have resulted in the fourth-straight budget deficit in excess of one trillion dollars.”

Under Obama’s budget plan, U.S. debt would reach $16.2 trillion by the end of the year and hit $25.4 trillion after a decade. The government is likely to reach its borrowing cap — the subject of a fierce fight last summer — late this year or early next year, which will require the next Congress and either Romney or Obama to act together to increase the borrowing cap.