Tell it all brother, tell it all: CBO tells Obama deficit panel that forecast remains bleak (I predict the middle class tax cuts may not materialize.)

From The Washington Post:

President Obama's overhaul of the health-care system has done little to improve the nation's fiscal outlook, and his pledge to extend an array of tax cuts for the middle class would only make things worse, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.

Although the health-care law, in the CBO's view, didn't help much, the fiscal picture would dim dramatically if Congress moved to short-circuit its cost-control measures while enacting tax policies Obama has proposed to benefit the middle class. Those policies include a permanent reduction in the alternative minimum tax and a plan to extend tax cuts enacted in the Bush administration for families making less than $250,000 a year. The Bush cuts are set to expire this year.

Under that scenario, which assumes overall taxation levels would remain stable relative to the size of the economy, the CBO said the national debt would soar to 87 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2025 and hit 185 percent by 2035 -- "uncharted territory," [the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas W.] Elmendorf said, that could include higher interest rates, more foreign borrowing, less private investment and lower income growth, if not a full-blown fiscal crisis.