All in the phrasing

The phrasing of these projections read just like Social Security crisis projections. I hope some of our friends see the irony of such claims about Social Security if they dislike these statements.

The CBO has released a report detailing the effects of indexing the the AMT to inflation (i.e. “patching” it so that fewer households would pay it than otherwise anticipated) and extending the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts without offsetting the revenue loss.

If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire and if the AMT continues its ever-deepening reach into the middle class, the federal debt held by the public will increase from today’s 37 percent of GDP to 115 percent in 2050. If AMT is indexed for inflation to limit its impact on the middle class, that debt figure becomes 115 percent in 2050. If the AMT is indexed for inflation and the Bush tax cuts are extended, federal debt held by the public jumps to 190 percent in 2050.
(Source: Congressional Budget Office)

Deficit financing of these tax cuts has a pernicious effect, reducing per capita income by 13 percent in 2050. But, “[b]eyond 2073, projected deficits under those tax policies would become so large and unsustainable that CBO’s model cannot calculate their effects.”