A sweeping budget deal passed earlier this month to raise spending caps in 2020 and 2021 will add $1.7 trillion to the U.S. deficit over a decade, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The CBO estimates that while the bipartisan deal increased spending for next year by about 3 percent over current levels, or $50 billion, the cap is 15 percent higher than the roughly $125 billion in budget cuts that were scheduled to go into effect.
That projection was the result of the CBO comparing the new spending path over a decade to the scheduled cuts. Last year, the CBO also estimated what the deficit would look like if there were no scheduled cuts and spending only rose with inflation. When compared to that estimate, the spending deal didn’t make a dent.
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