Don Marron

Over at his own blog, Donald Marron does a good job getting out additional details on the OMB mid-session budget review that will be released next Tuesday.

According to Donald, spending will be lower mainly because the funds the White House included in its proposed budget for an additional round of financial bailouts won't be needed, and because the costs of the first round of financial bailouts will be less than originally expected.  Other spending will be $17 billion less than previously forecast but revenues will be $83 billion less than had been projected.

So the estimated deficit falls to $1.58 trillion.

Several points to keep in mind as next Tuesday approaches:

1.  The imperfections of the English language virtually force the use of some version of the phrase "deficit will be less" when describing this situation.  That's true: if the mid-session's numbers are correct, the deficit will indeed be less than had been expected.  And that's definitely good news.

It's really nice having Don Marron in the blogosphere. 

This is something we all need to remember when talking about the stimulus.  Here's the money quote:

...I get the sense that some users of Recovery.gov do not realize that its figures cover only the spending side of the stimulus story, not the tax side.

The total impact by the end of June of the stimulus was closer to $100 billion than the $60 billion in spending shown on the website.  Another $40 billion in tax cuts has to be included to get the full picture.