Deficit hawks slam Trump budget as unrealistic

Budget watchers and deficit hawks on Monday excoriated President Trump‘s fiscal 2021 budget proposal for relying on what they called overly optimistic economic assumptions and unrealistic plans to tackle the nation’s $23 trillion debt.

Robert L. Bixby, executive director of The Concord Coalition, said Monday that Trump’s 2021 budget proposal is far from what the administration projected shortly after the president took office.

Trump’s first budget, Bixby noted, projected that the deficit in 2021 would fall to $456 billion, less than half the $966 billion the White House is now projecting.

“The rapidly deteriorating change comes from about $300 billion less in projected revenues and $200 billion more in projected spending,” Bixby noted.