Trump Budget Sees $1 Trillion Deficits for Next Four Years
Trump 2020 Budget Sees $1 Trillion Deficits for Next Four Years
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s newest budget forecasts the U.S. fiscal deficit surpassing $1 trillion this year and staying above that level until 2022.
The fiscal 2020 proposal sees the deficit expanding to $1.1 trillion for 2019 and 2020, when Trump will run for re-election. The shortfall is seen narrowing slightly to $1.07 trillion in 2021 and $1.05 trillion in 2022, before shrinking every year through 2029.
The budget deficit has already climbed 77 percent in the first four months of the current fiscal year through September, according to Treasury Department data.
Growing budget deficits would run contrary to the narrative put forth by the Trump administration that a package of tax cuts that took force last year will pay for themselves through faster economic growth. The White House budget blueprint is sure to hit a wall of opposition from Democrats and encounter resistance from Republicans as well.
The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan arm of Congress, in January pushed out its projections for the deficit to top $1 trillion until 2022 from an earlier expectation of 2020 amid lower disaster relief spending. That report projected muted economic gains in coming years, partly because of the fading impact of tax cuts and higher spending.
Trump’s first budget blueprint shortly after he took office envisioned far less red ink. That budget saw the deficit dropping to $442 billion in fiscal 2022.
(An earlier version of the story corrected the year in the second paragraph.)
--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katia Dmitrieva in Washington at edmitrieva1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Sarah McGregor
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.