Deficit may linger for long while, analysts say($500 billion debt in 2004)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/7349832.htm

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - As Congress brags about its 2003 accomplishments, many analysts fear its biggest legacy will be a soaring budget deficit that will last as far as the eye can see, ultimately inflicting severe damage on the U.S. economy.

Economists and budget analysts expressed growing concern about what they termed a lack of fiscal discipline on the part of both Congress and the White House in this year's session. They said mounting federal debt is a fiscal time bomb that could ultimately force higher taxes, inflation and a lower standard of living. snip

The budget deficit in fiscal 2004, which ends next Sept. 30, could soar to $500 billion after reaching a record $374 billion in 2003. With new spending added this year, said Bixby and other analysts, the deficit likely will stay above $400 billion for the rest of the decade, adding several trillion dollars to the federal debt.

When the first wave of the Baby Boom reaches retirement age at the end of the decade, said Urban Institute President Robert Reischauer, there will be no fiscal cushion to rely upon, and that could mean sharply higher taxes to pay for Social Security and Medicare or, in the alternative, rising inflation that undermines the economy.

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[HawkerHurricane]

1. MAY linger?

We're still paying off the Savings and Loan disaster, and that was over 10 years ago!

[salin]

2. My exact reaction...

it was hard enough to turn around a deficit that was only 60% of this size of deficit. Not to mention the cumalative deficits (in place of the surpluses we had been running.)

Nothing like running govt like a business. Too bad people hadn't asked how those businesses had been run... president ran two into the ground (hint... major league debts) a state into debt (within a year the state of Texas was in deficit crises), and a vice president whose "profits" were bolstered by fraudulent accounting practices, and that skirted US law to increase building business/profits by doing major business illegally with a foreign government under trade restrictions (more like black outs.)... Remember Halliburton was one of Iraq's biggest customers by the end of the 1990s... even though US companies were banned from doing business with Iraq... aren't foreign subidiaries grand....

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. There was a story in old DU about the deficit reaching the trillions

in the next decade..did you bookmark it? Remember that?

[54anickel]

4. He-he, and that report is using the "smaller" deficit numbers. They

are actually much higher.

We're in the money, we're in the money, we got a lot of what it takes to get along......

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/business/yourmoney/23view.html?ex=1070168400&en=8228fdc9e605712a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

If we factor out the so-called Social Security surplus - payroll taxes collected by the government but not paid out in benefits - the deficit in fiscal 2003 was actually far larger: $531 billion, or 4.9 percent of gross domestic product. For the current fiscal year, the administration expects that this figure, also called the on-budget deficit, will be even higher: $639 billion, or a whopping 5.4 percent of gross domestic product.

[The Zanti Regent]

5. Medicare is gone. Kiss Social Security good-bye too!

Grover Norquist said the happiest day of his life will be when Social Security and Medicare are eliminated.

I hope the son of a bitch has a stroke and winds up in a nursing home and then the money runs out for him!