Top story: The Congressional Budget Office—the people who use actual numbers and not magic wands to describe the nation’s finances—have some very good things and a few bad things to report. Naturally, everyone is cherry-picking.
- One-line take away: “More near-term austerity (tax hikes and spending cuts) makes little sense given the anemic growth rate, but longer-term entitlement reforms make tons of sense.” (Morning Money)
- You can read the entire report for yourself. (CBO)
- “CBO: 2013 deficit will be less than $1 trillion for first time in five years” (PostPolitics)
- And more good news: “Slower health-care cost growth will cut $200 billion in entitlement spending.” (Wonkblog)
- And even more: “CBO: Deficit to decline to 2.4% of GDP in Fiscal 2015” (Calculated Risk)
- And yet, Paul Ryan no like: "Today's CBO report is yet another warning that our deficit is unsustainable." (Paul Ryan)
- Long-term, however, we have some issues: “If Congress does nothing at all, US deficits will continue to drop until 2017, when they will start gradually rising again. A decade from now, debt held by the public will be 77% of GDP, up from 72.5% now.” (Quartz)
- “In one potentially exciting and portentous development, the CBO appears to be incorporating slower assumptions re the growth in health care outlays.” (Jared Bernstein)
- President Obama already is telling federal workers to prepare for possible furloughs in case no deal is reached on the sequester cuts. (Federal Eye)
- And what happens if sequestration takes effect? “Sequestration, spending caps, and reduced war spending will together reduce real federal consumption and gross investment by 11% over the next two years.” (Business Insider)
- Mind you, both parties are still bickering over who’s responsible for the sequester cuts. (The Fix)
- And this about sums it up for Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013: “Saturday mail is dead and the sequester is alive.” (Ben White)