Obama’s Truly Exceptional Budget and Tax Plans

I have a short piece in AEI's online magazine The American about President Obama's budget projections. The key point is that, while higher economic growth generally leads to lower deficits, Obama's own budget includes optimistic projections for economic growth alongside projections for deficits that dwarf those that Obama criticized President Bush for running.

Hypocrisy, they say, is vice's tribute to virtue. In politics, we praise candidates who pledge to boost economic growth and curb the deficit, however implausible the promises, if only because they represent an aspiration to effective government. Yet even by this lax standard, President Obama's budget is striking for its lack of ambition. Despite predicting almost implausibly strong economic growth over the next ten years, the administration itself projects enormous budget deficits.

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