Trillion dollar deficits into the future

Trillion dollar

When President Donald Trump unveiled his latest budget proposal in February, he projected that he could reduce the deficits during the 10-year forecasting window and bring the budget into balance in about 15 years. Yet that was before Congress passed a $2.2 trillion relief package — by far the largest government spending measure in U.S. history — to try to limit the economic damage caused by the coronavirus. Now, economists are expecting the deficits to soar. Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, is forecasting deficits of $2.5 trillion for both this budget year and next year’s. The Congressional Budget Office on March 30 released its analysis of Trump’s February budget plan. It found that the president’s spending and tax measures would produce a $1 trillion deficit this year, then pull the deficit below $1 trillion for four years before sending deficits back above $1 trillion for the rest of the decade. That is a much gloomier outlook than Trump had projected. Below is a look at the CBO’s estimate of the Trump budget and its baseline forecast for the next decade.