Forecast: Federal budget deficit will exceed $1.4T in 2010, 2011 23JUL10

Rep Mike Pence and his hypocritical colleagues in the Republican party will howl in dismay over these new projections and will stand in the way of deficit reduction through ending the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. A question for all those Republicans who claim these tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs.....WHERE ARE THOSE JOBS? These tax cuts and the cost of Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq are adding more to the deficit than the extension of unemployment benefits and the stimulus package, and economist across the political spectrum admit the stimulus is creating jobs....SO WHERE ARE ALL THE JOBS FROM THE BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY? This is from the Washington Post


The federal budget deficit, which hit a record $1.4 trillion last year, will exceed that figure this year and again in 2011, according to a White House forecast released Friday.
The $1.47 trillion budget gap predicted for 2010 represents a slight improvement over the administration's February forecast. But the outlook for 2011 has darkened considerably, primarily due to a drop in expected tax receipts from capital gains.
White House budget director Peter Orszag noted in a conference call with reporters that the president's budget is still on track to cut the deficit in half, as a percent of annual economic output, by the end of his first term. As the economy improves, the White House forecasts that the deficit will be just over $700 billion in 2013.
But at a time of heightened public anxiety about government borrowing, the forecast of three consecutive years awash in such high levels of red ink is certain to provide fresh ammunition to Republicans campaigning to regain control of Congress in the fall midterm elections.
Democrats quickly sought to remind voters that the budget gap is due primarily to the effects of the recession, which depressed tax revenues and forced policymakers to throw hundreds of billions of dollars into economic rescue programs.
"That federal response, including actions by the Federal Reserve, efforts to stabilize the financial sector started by the Bush Administration, and last year's economic recovery package, has successfully pulled the economy back from the brink," Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in a statement. "Although the economy remains fragile and the unemployment rate is still far too high, economic and job growth have begun to return."
Conrad and others noted that the president has created a bipartisan commission to develop a plan to reduce long-term deficits, which, if unchecked, threaten to drive the national debt to more than 77 percent of annual economic output by 2020.
But for the commission's efforts to succeed, independent budget analysts said President Obama should begin talking to voters now about the painful decisions ahead, including cuts to Social Security benefits and higher taxes.
"The White House has to use the bully pulpit to spotlight the nation's fiscal challenges," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "The President cannot afford to sweep this type of fiscal warning under the carpet or we risk that policymakers will go along their merry way, as they have in past years, ignoring the warnings and marching towards some type of fiscal calamity."