Did You Know...

**Written by Doug Powers

The Obama budget was released yesterday, and the administration predicted that the deficit in fiscal 2013 would fall to $901 billion.

Before taking that estimate to the bank, so to speak, it’s probably a good idea to see how on-target the administration has been with previous deficit projections:

In February 2009, Obama submitted his first budget to Congress. It boldly predicted that the federal deficit would decrease dramatically during Obama’s term, dropping from an estimated $1.841 trillion in fiscal 2009 to $557.4 billion in fiscal 2012.

However, in the fiscal 2013 budget that Obama submitted to Congress today, the White House is predicting that the federal deficit for fiscal 2012 will not be $557.4 billion after all. Instead, the White House says, it will be $1.3269 trillion.

That means Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget proposal missed on its fiscal 2012 deficit prediction by $769.5 billion — an error of 138 percent.

As Harry Doyle might say…

CNS notes that if the White House were to be off 138 percent in their 2014 budget deficit prediction of $667.8 billion, the real deficit number would be almost $1.6 trillion.

This Associated Press story says the White House has enlisted some “familiar phantoms” to make their numbers work. Actually I feel kind of silly mentioning any of this because I’m sure the Truth Team would have pointed these things out before too long.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe