John Hall’s Idea of Fiscal Responsibility: White House Ratchets Up Deficit Projection by $2 Trillion

Yet Another Hit Delivered to Democrats’ Big-Spending Agenda

Washington- John Hall will surely be backpedaling today as yet another vote for his party’s ongoing government spending spree has come back to bite him. Hall, who voted in favor of his party’s egregious and bloated federal budget, is now on the hook for an additional $2 trillion as the White House attempts to quietly ratchet up its deficit projections in the midst of a slow August news cycle.

“As was reported last week, the Obama administration announced today that it has revised its 10-year cumulative budget deficit projection to around $9.051 trillion, up from its February projection of $7.1 trillion.

“Administration officials said Monday that these numbers put their projection in line with the Congressional Budget Office’s June projection. These out-year deficits are about 4 percent of GDP, which the administration says is ‘higher than desirable.’” (Karen Travers, “White House: Budget Deficit Will Be $2 Trillion Higher than Projected,” ABC News, 8/25/09)

Was this what Hall had in mind just a few short months ago when he cast his vote in favor of yet another one of President Obama’s and Speaker Pelosi’s runaway spending plans? After Hall supported the Democrats’ budget in April, he boldly bragged that he had helped strengthen a struggling economy:

“Today, U.S. Rep. John Hall (D-NY19) joined a majority of the House of Representatives in approving a vision for America's long-term economic success and fiscal responsibility by passing President Obama's budget blueprint. With smart, growth-targeted investments in health care, education, and clean, renewable energy sources, this blueprint will build upon the economic incentives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to ensure the nation's economic revival, while also managing to cut the federal deficit by more than half by 2013.” (Press Release, 4/2/09)

“Did John Hall recklessly misjudge the economy to the tune of two trillion dollars of deficit or was he simply duped by his party bosses into voting for a budget that they couldn’t pay for?” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “Two trillion might not seem like much to someone as out-of-touch as John Hall, but the New York families who will be stuck paying down that deficit would probably prefer to disagree. Hall owes an explanation to the folks back home as to why he put a nine trillion dollar deficit on the backs of their children and grandchildren.”

Unfortunately for New York families, it looks like they’ll be stuck paying down John Hall’s reckless budget vote for a long time to come.