Patrick Leahy: “the new Congressional Budget Office, CBO, budget deficit numbers announced Monday should trouble us all. Only 1 month…”

“the new Congressional Budget Office, CBO, budget deficit numbers announced Monday should trouble us all. Only 1 month ago CBO, estimated that the Federal deficit would be $300 billion--an alarming number considering that when President Bush took office the Federal Government was running a surplus. Now, CBO has notified Congress that the deficit will be a record $400 billion. CBO now projects that the federal government is likely to end fiscal year 2003 with a deficit of more than $400 billion, or close to 4 percent of gross domestic product. The deterioration in the short-term budget outlook stems from continued weakness in revenue collections and from enactment of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, which will add an estimated $61 billion to this year's deficit in the form of tax cuts, refundable credits, and aid to states. The recent extension of unemployment benefits will boost outlays by another $3 billion this year. For the first eight months of 2003, the government ran a deficit of $291 billion, CBO estimates, about twice the shortfall it incurred in the same period last year. When President Bush entered the White House in January 2001, the Nation was enjoying a record budget surplus that was built with hard choices and determination over the previous 8 years. With breathtaking speed, this administration's fiscal irresponsibility has quickly turned those record surpluses into record deficits.”