The unanticipated hiatus between this week's conference approval of the FY09 budget resolution and its formal adoption by Congress next month gives us some time to examine the assumptions underlying the deficit/surplus projections in both the resolution and the budget submitted by the President in February in depth prior to passage. It is presumably de riguer in modern budgetmaking to show how we can get from here to the promised land of budget surplus, presto. Indeed, both documents project sizable federal government surpluses in 2012 and 2013. The budget resolution projects surpluses for those years in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But today, the Center on Budget's released an Analysis of the Conference Agreement that revisits the resolution's assumptions and provides a sobering reality check on its projected surpluses/deficits, factoring in more realistic assumptions regarding:

• the extension of portions of Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003
• maintaining defense expenditures at current levels
• supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan *
• increased interest expense

and concludes that both the president's budget and the budget resolution underestimate the cumulative projected 2008-13 surpluses/deficits by close to $800 billion. We strongly support adoption of the budget resolution for its marked and numerous improvements over the president's provisions for FY09. But without saying so in as many words, the CBPP analysis makes amply clear that the projected 2012 and 2013 surpluses rest on somewhat fanciful assumptions. The analysis makes the implicit point that more credible assumptions in support of out-year deficit/surplus projections would help restore some badly needed integrity to the budget process. ----------- * The Senate just approved the largest emergency supplemental appropriations bill in U.S. history, adding approximately a quarter of a trillion dollars to this amount. The House is expected to follow suit tomorrow.