Administration projections that its FY 2008 federal budget proposal would yield a surplus by FY 2012 were contradicted today by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of the President's plan. The bottom lines:

• the Bush budget will fail to balance in 2012 by $9 billion (see Table 1); CBO's estimate projects $119 billion less in revenues in 2012 than does OMB's
• domestic discretionary spending for FY 2008 is scored at $932 billion (Table 4), up from the President's proposed $928.9 cap

The CBO score sets the baseline for the upcoming House and Senate Committee budget resolutions, mark-ups for which are expected the week of Mar. 12 It assumes the $50 billion budgeted by the President for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 but no further funding thereafter, as well as the Administration's failure to propose changes to the AMT beyond the one-year "patch" extension. If anything, the new CBO estimates will probably only further incline Democratic budgetmakers drafting the FY 2008 budget resolutions to disregard the bottom lines and policy priorities of the President's proposal.