Running The Numbers

The Congressional Budget Office is estimating that the Obama administration's fiscal year 2011 budget request, if enacted, would result in deficits of $1.5 trillion in 2010 and $1.3 trillion in 2011, according to a CBO letter sent today to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI). "Those deficits would amount to 10.3 percent and 8.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), respectively," the letter states, adding: "By comparison, the deficit in 2009 totaled 9.9 percent of GDP."

On the defense side, CBO estimates the following:

From 2010 to 2011, total funding for discretionary defense programs in the President’s budget would grow by $16 billion, or 2.2 percent. Budget authority unrelated to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would grow by more than 3 percent, or $18 billion. Partially offsetting that increase, appropriations for the wars would edge down from $161 billion (with the requested supplemental appropriations included) to $159 billion.

For the period after 2011, the Administration’s budget includes a placeholder of $50 billion a year for war-related operations. As a result, proposed funding for defense overall would drop from $733 billion in 2011 to $642 billion in 2012 and would remain below the 2011 amount until 2018. Funding for defense activities other than for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan would grow by an average of 3 percent annually through 2020.