The Obama Report

From the USA Today:

Jobs and the deficits are going to be big themes of President Obama's big speech tomorrow -- and he got some bad numbers on both topics today from the Congressional Budget Office...

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office says the nation's $1.4 trillion deficit is likely to stay in that range for the next two years...

The 2010 deficit should be about $1.35 trillion, and if Obama keeps President Bush's tax cuts in place and extends other expiring tax breaks, the 2011 deficit would be about the same, the report says. Over the next decade, the nation would rack up another $12 trillion in deficits, thereby doubling the size of the $12 trillion national debt.

"Daunting" and "bleak" were just some of the adjectives used by CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf on Tuesday to describe the 10-year budget picture. Spending is projected to outpace revenue, and the debt would soon be two-thirds the size of the overall economy. By 2020, interest payments on that debt would be more than $700 billion, about four times the size of the current amount...

"In sum, the outlook for the federal budget is bleak," Elmendorf said. "U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path to an extent that cannot be solved by minor tinkering."

However, despite Mr. Elmendorf ominous forecast, there's really nothing to worry about. Obama assured Bloomberg News last week that everything is "on the table" as far as tax increases are concerned, including tax hikes on the middle class. So, while it may be true that 'minor tinkering' will not get us out of this rut, 'MAJOR tinkering', will. And clearly there's no one more capable of 'tinkering' with our economy and our wallets than Obama.