the biggest factor contibuting to the Deficit, the Bush tax cuts. _CBPP

[JohnWxy]

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

The economic downturn contributed a bit more, but that was in part caused by the Bush tax cuts (along with the Government in abstentia - Deregulation philosphy of the GOP).



Bush Tax Cuts, War Costs Do Lasting Harm to Budget Outlook

Some commentators blame recent legislation — the stimulus bill and the financial rescues — for today’s record deficits. Yet those costs pale next to other policies enacted since 2001 that have swollen the deficit. Those other policies may be less conspicuous now, because many were enacted years ago and they have long since been absorbed into CBO’s and other organizations’ budget projections.

Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration — tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. <6> (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).

Without the economic downturn and the fiscal policies of the previous Administration, the budget would be roughly in balance over the next decade. That would have put the nation on a much sounder footing to address the demographic challenges and the cost pressures in health care that darken the long-run fiscal outlook.<7>
(more)

[Igel]

1. Present or future?

People usually seem to mean "present deficit" when they use that graph, even though the graph puts the "downturn" as the dominant factor this year, with "recovery measures" ("stimulus", mostly) as second or a close third.

Everything else is a projection or prediction and should be labelled as such. Future possibilities are seldom present facts.