DJ Interest Outlays Cited As Fastest Growing Part Of Budget
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Interest payments on the federal debt are projected to increase at a 12% annual rate under President George W. Bush's new fiscal year 2006 budget, said William Niskanen, head of the Cato Institute and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan.
"This is the most rapidly increasing component of the federal budget and provides no current government services," Niskanen said in a statement Monday.
According to the new Bush budget, net interest payments are projected to rise from $160 billion in fiscal year 2004 to $178 billion in fiscal 2005 to $211 billion in fiscal 2006 and to $245 billion in fiscal 2007, reaching $314 billion in 2010, the last year in the forecast.
Niskanen said the new Bush budget "is tight only for domestic discretionary programs other than homeland security - less than 19% of total outlays in fiscal year 2005."
Another Cato official, Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said, "Despite his promises, Bush's budget does not realistically cut the deficit in half by 2009." |
