Earlier this week, President Obama released the White House's budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 along with their budget projections for the following 10 years. The White House projects a record budget deficit in 2011 of $1.645 trillion, but for the deficit to be reduced to $1.101 trillion in 2012, $768 billion in 2013, $645 billion in 2014, and a low of $607 billion in 2015, before rising back up to $774 billion in 2021. We give Obama credit for being honest and admitting that he has no intention of making any attempt to balance the budget. However, NIA believes the White House is making ridiculous assumptions and deceiving the public about future budget deficits.
In our opinion, the White House will be right about the U.S. having a record budget deficit in 2011. Unfortunately, we believe this is the only thing they will be right about. Any proposed spending cuts coming out of Washington today are so small that they are a waste of time even discussing. The truth is, the total cost of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory programs alone will be $2.2 trillion in 2011. Then when you add in the projected $205 billion in interest payments on our national debt in 2011, we will have a budget deficit of $235 billion right there without including any of the government's $891 billion in security and $496 billion in non-security discretionary spending.
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