Economic Good News!

If your idea of good economic news is huge federal budget deficits for the next decade. More wonderful news at the link.

H/T Mankiw.

UPDATE: From The Corner.

Heritage Foundation budget expert and NRO contributor Brian Riedl parses the CBO's ten-year budget baseline. Some key points (emphasis added):

—While the CBO projects a ten-year deficit of $6 trillion, a more realistic current policy baseline – that assumes the tax cuts are extended, the AMT is fixed, and discretionary spending grows with the economy – shows a ten-year deficit of $13 trillion.

—By 2020, this more realistic budget forecasts a $1.9 trillion annual budget deficit, a public debt of $22 trillion (98 percent of GDP), and annual net interest spending surpassing $1 trillion (one-quarter of all tax revenue).

—Compared to the historical average, 88 percent of the added 2020 budget deficit comes from higher spending, and just 12 percent comes from lower tax revenues – and even that assumes all 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are extended and the AMT is patched. Clearly, spending is the problem.

—After the debt slowly grew to $5.8 trillion through 2008, the more realistic baseline shows the federal government adding an astonishing $16.3 trillion in new debt between 2009 and 2020—$130,000 per household over those 12 years.

—Overall, from 2001 through 2009, federal spending surged 51 percent faster than inflation. Federal spending per household expanded from $21,510 in 2001 to $29,813 in 2009.

—This baseline does not count the cost of president Obama’s proposals, such as health care and cap-and-trade, which would increase spending further.

Riedl's full report, if you can stomach it, can be found here.