Political Quotes

“A year ago, CBO projected the deficit would top $650 billion in 2003; by last September, CBO had chopped its projection to $359 billion. The enormous improvement during that 6-month period was almost wholly attributable-- Listen to this-- was almost wholly attributable to the enactment of an ambitious deficit reduction package. The newest projection for 2003, a deficit of $324 billion-- Coming down as the Senator from New York aptly, correctly said-- is only a minor revision in comparison. Of the $35 billion revision, two-thirds stems from higher revenues as CBO has upped its estimate of potential growth, and one-third from lower interest costs as CBO has trimmed its estimate of Federal debt. Of course, these extrapolations are not as detailed as CBO's usual 5-year estimates. Rather than produce a meticulous 10-year projection for every program in the budget, CBO attempts simply to judge the likely trends in broad clusters of spending and revenues. And great uncertainties surround such long-range extrapolations.”