February 10, 2018
Here are a few small changes from the article in today’s Post (“Massive infusion of spending ends era of restraint for federal agencies, Pentagon) telling readers how the new budget deal would increase the budget deficit.
“The deal signed into law by President Trump will pump more than $500 billion in additional money (1.2 percent of GDP) into domestic agencies and the Pentagon over two years, the biggest increase in spending in almost a decade. It ends months of budget squabbles and provides greater certainty for the government officials responsible for the military, disaster relief and domestic agencies.”
…
“While Congress approved a 10 percent increase in spending for the Pentagon and domestic agencies — lifting the military budget to $700 billion this year (3.5 percent of GDP) and the domestic budget to $591 billion (3.0 percent of GDP) — appropriators on 12 different committees have to fill in many of the details.”
…
“The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that the United States will have a $1 trillion budget deficit (5.0 percent of GDP) by next year — extremely high by historical standards — and that it will probably last for years.”
…
“Some of the largest debates on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks — a complete budget is due by March 23 — are probably going to be over border security funding, $86 billion in disaster funding and $140 billion in emergency war funding.” (The piece does not indicate whether these would be single year or multi-year appropriations, so it is not clear how large they are relative to the budget or the economy.)
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