| Deficit Balloons Into National-Security Threat |
The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.
The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work.
These numbers are often discussed as an economic and domestic problem. But it’s time to start thinking of the ramifications for America’s ability to continue playing its traditional global role. |
| The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries.Read more at online.wsj.com |
| $100 Billion Increase in Deficit Is Forecast |
| The additional tax cuts and public works spending that President Obama has proposed to spur job creation would add $100 billion to this year’s deficit, bringing it to nearly $1.6 trillion, according to an administration official. |
| A deficit of that size for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 would be about $150 billion greater than last year’s deficit, which was the highest since World War II. |
| Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that this year’s deficit would be more than $1.3 trillion without further spending or tax cuts. Mr. Obama’s proposed $100 billion stimulus package, which includes tax credits for small businesses that make new hires and money for infrastructure projects, is less than a $154 billion package that the House approved in December but more than a measure the Senate is drafting.Read more at www.nytimes.com |
| Our view on the federal budget: You can’t cut the deficit without touching benefits |
| New focus on curbing spending must deal with entitlements. |
| For far too long, the conventional wisdom in Washington has been that budget deficits don’t matter. At least not enough to warrant doing anything painful to rein them in. |
| Now that attitude seems to be shifting, and it’s not hard to see why. When the amount borrowed by the federal government in a year sprouts an extra digit, passing $1 trillion, it’s an attention-grabber. And when the government spends nearly $2 for every dollar it is taking in, it’s unsustainable. |
| To be sure, there’s bloat in the federal bureaucracy and defense spending. But the real drivers of looming deficits are Medicare, projected to grow from $516 billion this year to $932 billion in 2018, and Social Security, forecast to grow from $581 billion this year to $966 in 2018 as Baby Boomers retire.Read more at blogs.usatoday.com |
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