5 Scariest Debt And Unemployment Charts From The New Cbo Report

[Valin]

The Enterprise Blog: James Pethokoukis

January 31, 2012

 

The Congressional Budget Office has released its updated 10-year budget and economic forecast. Actually, the CBO offers two forecasts. It has a baseline forecast, which assumes current law stays in place. It also has an “alternative” forecast which assumes current tax and spending policy stays in place as is—even if the law says it must change in coming years. That scenario incorporates the following assumptions:

 

(Snip)

 

I like to refer to the “alternative fiscal scenario” as the “realistic fiscal scenario.” It is certainly the scarier scenario over the long term. For instance, annual budget deficits would average 5.4 percent of GDP over the 2013–2022 period under the alternative fiscal scenario, rather than the 1.5 percent reflected in CBO’s baseline projections. (In other words, instead of adding $3 trillion in new debt over the next decade, Washington would add $11 trillion.) Debt held by the public would climb to 94 percent of GDP in 2022, the highest figure since just after World War II.

 

With that background, here are some of the scariest debt and economic charts I pulled out of the CBO report:

 

(Snip)

 

 

Have A Nice Day.