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Thursday, August 23, 2007
CBO Undercuts Bush Claims on Tax Cuts
What Was the Point ... Is Not at this Point
To follow up on Craig's post below on the CBO budget outlook released today, the Center on Budget points out that CBO flatly contradicts the President's claim that "tax cuts are boosting the economy and significantly improving the budget outlook for coming years."
The outlook for the economy and the budget in 2008 through 2017 has not improved significantly since the beginning of this year... The modest improvements in CBO's projections of revenues and deficits for years after 2007 ... were due to factors that cannot be attributed to the President's tax cuts, notably higher-than-anticipated inflation this year, a slightly larger projected labor force, and an increase in the projected share of GDP represented by corporate profits.
It is worth noting as well that the Bush tax cuts have probably already had far more significant economic and budgetary impact (for good or ill) than they might still have today, let alone in the "coming years," which in any case end long before 2017, since the tax cuts expire in 2010.
As we have reported, CBO had a look last month at the economic (negligible) and budgetary (devastating) impact of the Bush tax cuts, at this stage of the game, 2007.
Or is it simply too late for the White House to revise stale talking points, at this point?
Posted by Dana Chasin
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