The pro growth sequester... no, its not armageddon

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February 22, 2013

The pro growth sequester... no, its not armageddon
Posted by Staff

Larry Kudlow reports:

The Obama administration is whipping up hysteria over the sequester budget cuts and their impact on the economy, the military, first providers, and so forth and so on. Armageddon. But if you climb into the CBO numbers for 2013, you see a much lighter and easier picture than all the worst-case scenarios being conjured up by the administration.

For example, the $85 billion so-called spending cut is actually budget authority, not budget outlays. According to the CBO, budget outlays will come down by $44 billion, or one quarter of 1 percent of GDP (GDP is $15.8 trillion). What’s more, that $44 billion outlay reduction is only 1.25 percent of the $3.6 trillion government budget.

So the actual outlay reduction is only half the budget-authority savings. The rest of it will spend out in the years ahead — that is, if Congress doesn’t tamper with it.

02/22/13 8:04 AM

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