Rising red ink

When President Trump released his new budget plan in March, the deficit figures were startling. The administration projected the annual deficit would top $1 trillion this year and stay above $1 trillion for four straight years before beginning to improve.

But when the Congressional Budget Office released its own analysis of the president’s budget on May 9, it showed an even bleaker deficit picture. CBO says that under the president’s spending and tax plan, the deficits will be slightly smaller than the administration projected over the next three years. But starting in 2022 they will become much larger.

In total, CBO sees deficits totaling $9.9 trillion from 2020 to 2029, $2.7 trillion higher than the administration’s deficit total. The major difference is economic growth. The Trump budget forecasts growth will average 2.9 percent over the next decade, while the CBO estimates growth will average just 1.8 percent over that timeframe. The CBO forecast is much closer to the estimates of private forecasters.