EDITORIAL: CBO provides Biden administration with reality check

In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden bragged about his skill as a deficit cutter and strafed “his predecessor” for the skyrocketing national debt. Back on Earth, the Congressional Budget Office offered a more realistic assessment of the fiscal course charted by the administration.

On Wednesday, the bipartisan CBO issued an updated 10-year budget and economic forecast. The news was not good. The office projects that the debt will surpass $46 trillion in fiscal 2033. For perspective, the debt in fiscal 2008 was $10.3 trillion.

“The debt trajectory is unsustainable,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said. “At some point, something has to give — whether it’s on spending or revenue.”

Blame the former. Federal revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product is at 19.6 percent, well above the norm. Yet Congress continues to spend every dime it can get its hands on — and then some. Far from being an exercise in fiscal restraint, Mr. Biden’s first two years in office saw the passage of trillions in new outlays that have only hastened the looming train wreck.

The president demagogues Republicans as granny killers on entitlements, but the CBO notes that Social Security is less than 10 years from being unable to pay full benefits, raising the potential for 20 percent cuts across the board. Inaction is the real danger. Meanwhile, annual interest payments on the soaring debt will soon eclipse defense spending.

As for Mr. Biden’s shots at Donald Trump, the current White House, the CBO estimates, will preside over deficits likely to dwarf those of its “predecessor,” save for 2020, the pandemic year. “The new forecasts project a $1.4 trillion gap this year between what the government spends and what it takes in from tax revenues,” The New York Times noted. “Over the following 10 years, deficits will average $2 trillion annually.”

Democrats maintain that massive tax hikes on “the rich” will solve the nation’s red ink problem. But sucking billions more out of the private sector will hinder economic growth and cripple productivity, while enabling congressional big spenders, which include too many Republicans.

The Times runs cover for the president and congressional Democrats, claiming the CBO “report makes clear that bipartisan legislation — and the Fed’s interest rate increases — are to blame for the jump in debt projections.” Yet the Fed’s rate hikes are a response to soaring inflation, itself a byproduct of the Biden administration’s fiscal mistakes.

“Our projections suggest,” the CBO’s Mr. Swagel said, “that changes in fiscal policy must be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt.”

Joe Biden the deficit slayer, indeed. The political cynicism is extraordinary.