The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has raised its estimates of budget deficits. Earlier this year, the prediction was for a deficit of $46 billion for the current fiscal year. However, individual tax receipts were recently projected to run some $40 billion below expectations, and that has caused experts to guess that the deficit could go upwards of $70 billion. Congress has been considering President Bush’s request for a $27 billion supplemental spending bill with $10 to $15 billion to be spent this fiscal year. That could bring the overall deficit to above $100 billion, compared with a surplus of $127 billion in the previous fiscal year.
• Congressional “pork” projects, that nifty way legislators have in attaching unassailable “earmarked” projects to various appropriations bills, does not indicate any great concern with projected deficits and spending. The 2002 Congressional Pig Book Summary, published by and available through the Citizens Against Government Waste (P.O. Box 96564, Washington, DC, 20077-7200) for $25, points out that appropriators tacked 8,341 projects in 13 appropriations bills at a cost of $20.1 billion.
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