Trump's Budget Math Grapples With Economic Reality
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s budget proposals have been defined by a belief that the economy will grow significantly faster than most economists anticipate. The latest version, set for release on Monday, is a brief departure: It concedes, for the first time, that the administration’s past projections were too optimistic.
Then it goes right back to forecasting 3 percent growth, for the better part of a decade.
Mr. Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal is slightly larger than last year’s $4.75 trillion request and calls for increased spending on the military, the border wall, infrastructure and other priorities, including extending the president’s 2017 tax cuts. It also includes trillions of dollars of cuts to safety-net programs like Medicaid and discretionary spending programs outside of the military, like education and the environment.
The White House makes the case that this is affordable and that the deficit will start to fall, dropping below $1 trillion in the 2021 fiscal year and that the budget will be balanced by 2035. That projection relies on rosy assumptions about growth and the accumulation of new federal debt — both areas where the administration’s past predictions have proved to be overconfident.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trumps-budget-math-grapples-with-economic-reality/ar-BBZQspz?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=hplocalnews
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Thankfully, it won't get through the House like that. I expect more squabbles when the real budget proposal hits the Senate.
