Bad Times For Deficit Hawks

by Ed Kilgore
Politics

So back in the real world, Matt Yglesias sums up the recent good news about budget deficits:

The Congressional Budget Office just did a new series of baseline budget deficit projections (PDF) and they’re a lot lower than the old ones. The short-term deficit, in particular, is way lower. We’re looking at a $643 billion deficit for 2013 rather than an $845 billion one. That’s about half higher-than-expected tax revenues and about half higher-than-expected payouts from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In both cases what we’re seeing is that a stronger-than-expected economy leads to a smaller-than-expected deficit.

But they’re also revising the 10-year deficit forecast down by $618 billion, primarily because of the slowdown in health care spending.

I must have missed the blaring MSM news coverage, and also the ticker-tape parade. But then I guess deficits are news only when they are going up.

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Ed Kilgore

Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York and managing editor at the Democratic Strategist website. He was a contributing writer at the Washington Monthly from January 2012 until November 2015, and was the principal contributor to the Political Animal blog.