CBO Says Debt Picture “Worsened Dramatically” Over Last Few Years, Also Says Sky is Blue, Water Wet

The Congressional Budget Office says all the spending Team Obama has done over the last few years has made things worse.

I’m going to go ahead and go with…

The long-term outlook for the federal budget has worsened dramatically over the past several years, in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession and slow recovery,” the Congressional Budget Office reported in its long-term budget outlook for 2015 released Tuesday.

The Budget Office, a nonpartisan in-house think tank for Congress, projected that the federal debt is set to rise from 74 percent of economic output today to 103 percent by 2040, driven by spending on government healthcare and retirement programs and interest payments on the debt.

In other words, driven by things the federal government shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

The projection issued Tuesday, which is subject to significant uncertainty, is a slight improvement from last year, when the budget office estimated that debt would hit 106 percent by 2039. The outlook has gotten brighter, if only trivially, because financial markets now expect lower interest rates in the future, which will lower the cost of servicing the debt for the Treasury.

While President Obama inherited a huge national debt, he’s only made it worse.

How much worse?

Just six years ago when President Obama took office, total debt stood at $10.6 trillion, which means it now has increased by almost $8 trillion—roughly 70 percent—during his tenure as president.

The surge in total debt, which has hit 103 percent of gross domestic product, comes at a time when politicians are championing falling deficits and claiming them as evidence that government spending is under control.

Although deficits have been falling since 2009—when they were at record levels with a dearth of revenue to offset massive spending—they don’t tell the full story. This past year the government still spent $486 billion more than it took in. And the annual deficit is expected to reach trillion-dollar levels again within 10 years, further accelerating the growth of the national debt and interest payments required to service it.

Thanks, Obama. And all the other big government Republicans and Democrats who enable him.