John Spratt: “we do indeed. I was just looking for the chart that is most applicable. This is one right here. And what we have done…”

“we do indeed. I was just looking for the chart that is most applicable. This is one right here. And what we have done here on the bottom line is we have taken, first of all, the baseline projection of the Congressional Budget Office; and as the gentleman noted, they have to assume certain things because those are the rules handed down to them by law. But we have adjusted their projection for political reality. For example, we have assumed that there would be some continuing expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan. We have assumed that many of the Bush tax cuts when they reach the expiration date, because most of them have implanted in them a sunset expiration date, that is the way they will pass to begin with, that most, when they reach that sunset date, will, in fact, be renewed and therefore the revenues will not be recouped. When we do that, what we find is that the deficit improves a bit. We get a bounce from the recovery we are experiencing right now. We are not stuck at 521. It improves to about $389 billion next year and then bottoms out in the range of the mid-$300 billion level until we get to the far end of our table, at which point it declines again to about $500 billion. So, essentially, we tread water. The deficit does not get better.”