Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Federal Deficit Is Set 'to Explode'

Be warned: The steady stream of federal red ink is getting to be a deeper shade of crimson.

As increases in annual U.S. budget gap add to national debt, blunt prospects for economic growth, and bode badly for America’s financial future, Barron’s reports.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently revised its projections for the U.S. budget in a report that began with an alert that, in fiscal year 2016, the budget deficit will grow, relative to the economy, for the first time since 2009. In dollar terms, that’s about a $590 billion annual gap, $152 billion wider than last year’s.
“If current laws generally remained unchanged—an assumption underlying CBO’s baseline projections—deficits would continue to mount over the next 10 years, and debt held by the public would rise from its already high level,” the CBO reported.
“In short, the federal budget deficit is about to explode,” David Ader, a government-bond strategist at Greenwich Capital, RBS, and most recently, CRT, wrote for Barron’s.

The agency projected that the debt held by the public will rise 3 percentage points to 77 percent of U.S. gross domestic product by the end of fiscal year 2016 this month, the Washington Examiner reported.

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