Cue the pearl-clutching from the deficit peacock Republicans who just voted for nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts and $1.3 trillion in spending. The deficit, which they will all now care about more than anything else, is going to get very big, very fast says the Congressional Budget Office, topping $1 trillion by 2020, two years sooner than previously estimated.
Spending will exceed revenue by $804 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, jumping from a projected $563 billion shortfall forecast in June, the non-partisan arm of Congress said in a report Monday. In fiscal 2019, the deficit will reach $981 billion, compared with an earlier projection of $689 billion.
Deficits were only set to surpass the trillion-dollar level in fiscal 2022 under CBO’s report last June. […]
The U.S. cumulative deficit -- taking into account the new tax and spending legislation -- will be $11.7 trillion from 2018 to 2027, about $1.6 trillion larger than the CBO projection in June. The CBO forecast 2 percent less revenue and 1 percent more spending over the period, it said.
That's what happens when Republicans control government. The other thing that happens is that they start screaming about deficits. That starts this week, when the House votes on the balanced budget amendment and in the coming weeks when the administration will release its "enhanced rescission package"—undoing the spending they just approved last month.
Their target won't be a surprise: the safety net and the biggies—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Now that they have these deficit numbers, which they are totally responsible for because they created them, expect the screaming for cuts to go to 11.