As reported over the weekend, the new Obama budget document lowers growth estimates for the current year to a (still) high 2.6 percent and estimates this years' deficit at $1.2 trillion. That will bring our national debt to $16.2 trillion by the end of the fiscal year.
The more worrisome number in the new report is the estimated national debt at the end of the current 10-year budget widow. Senator Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee posted this chart of the anticipated growth of our debt. As you can see, we'll be looking at over $25 trillion in debt by 2022:
The budget items driving this are largely Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Both Social Security and Medicare are currently paying out more in benefits than they take in. President Obama has on a few occasions, notably last summer during the debt-ceiling negotiations, suggested he would be open to modifying the programs but he has never put a plan on paper. In fact, even during negotiations last summer, Obama never offered any specifics about how he would reign in spending in these programs.
When Obama took office in 2009 he promised to slow the growth of the debt by cutting the annual deficit in half. At the time he said "We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration, or the next generation." But the budget document released Friday shows that Obama is doing exactly that.
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