President Trump’s proposed budget would add $2.3 trillion more to deficits over the next decade than the White House estimated, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday.
CBO, Congress’ agency for producing budget analyses, said Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget would add $9.5 trillion to total deficits over the decade, not the $7.2 trillion the White House projected. The difference is mostly attributable to the CBO’s estimate of slower economic growth. Less growth means smaller tax collections and thus higher deficits.
Thursday’s analysis applied to the budget proposal that the White House submitted in February.
The White House budget proposal is not law or legislation, but rather a document spelling out the administration’s preferences for taxing and spending over the next 10 years. In analyzing it, the CBO was effectively checking the work of the Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for drafting the budget.
The CBO thinks that the early years of the Trump budget would actually see lower deficits than the White House thought. But in later years, deficits would eventually grow to double what the White House thought, as revenues come in short of their expectations.
Ultimately, the debt would rise from about 78 percent of gross domestic product this year to 86 percent by 2028. In comparison, the White House maintained that its budget would lower the debt as a percentage of GDP.
