WASHINGTON -- President Obama's proposed 2013 budget will forecast a $901 billion deficit for next year, falling far short of his goal to halve the deficit in four years.
A few details of the budget, scheduled for release Monday, were confirmed by two administration sources Friday after they were reported by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
The budget will show a higher deficit this year than in 2011, up from $1.3 trillion to $1.33 trillion. And the projected decline to $901 billion in 2013 is dependent on enactment of the president's policies, including spending reductions agreed to last summer and ending George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy at the end of this year.
For weeks, White House officials have said the budget would make little news because many of its elements were well known:
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About $1 trillion in spending cuts agreed to with Congress and signed into law in August.
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Obama's goal of slashing another $3 trillion from annual deficits over 10 years, including about $1.2 trillion mandated by the August agreement.
- Obama's key priorities, outlined in his State of the Union address last month, and in the American Jobs Act he proposed in September. Those include initiatives in clean energy production, education and training, and infrastructure repair.
- His desire to add $1.5 trillion in new revenue, much of it by ending Bush's tax cuts for families with income above $250,000. Republicans who control the House have previously blocked that proposal.
Earlier this week, the White House announced that its unemployment projections included in the budget -- 8.9% in 2012 and 8.6% in 2013 -- already are outdated. If the actual jobless rates are a full percentage point lower, that could mean a $95 billion reduction in the deficit, according to a previous estimate from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
USA Today