In its Budget and Economic Outlook for August, the CBO writes, “The United States is facing profound budgetary and economic challenges. At 8.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the $1.3 trillion budget deficit that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects for 2011 will be the third-largest shortfall in the past 65 years (exceeded only by the deficits of the preceding two years).”

Our staggering, unsustainable deficits aside, the CBO notes two interesting things that clearly contradict promises and predictions made about them by the Obama administration.

First, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf writes on his blog, “With modest economic growth anticipated for the next few years, CBO expects employment to expand slowly. The unemployment rate is projected to fall to 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of this year and to 8.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and then to remain above 8 percent until 2014 . . . .”

But recall that when President Obama was selling his nearly $1 trillion stimulus bill (financed entirely by deficit spending), his economic advisors claimed that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8% if the stimulus was passed. Now CBO is saying that unemployment might not even return to that level until 2014.

Meanwhile, CBO’s summary of the outlook notes, “Beyond the 10-year projection period, further increases in federal debt relative to the nation’s output almost surely lie ahead if certain policies remain in place. The aging of the population and rising costs for health care will push federal spending up considerably as a percentage of GDP.” The report adds, “CBO projects that the costs of [federal health care] programs per beneficiary will continue rising . . . .”

Yet when President Obama and Democrats in Congress were pushing their health care spending bill, Obama pledged, “The plan I’m announcing tonight … will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government.” He later said that “every single good idea to bend the cost curve and start actually reducing health care costs are in this bill.” And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who helped write the bill, said, “And without reform, health care expenditures will increase…”

So once again, when impartial observers actually look at the data, the Obama administration’s promises come up short.

Related:

Rasmussen Reports:

15% Say U.S. Heading In Right Direction

55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law

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