I believe Greensboro’s Political System is Broken III: If the federal budget “is on an unsustainable path,” should Greensboro’s City Council borrow to spend more than we make for what our community doesn’t need?

White House, Congress projects record deficits: Citing worse than expected economy, White House and Congress offer bleak budget outlooks

The federal government faces exploding deficits and mounting debt over the next decade.

Both the White House Office of Management and Budget and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted the budget deficit this year would swell to nearly $1.6 trillion, a record, and far above the then-record 2008 budget deficit of $455 billion.

…the CBO said. "The budget remains on an unsustainable path" over the long-term and will require some combination of lower spending and higher tax revenues, it said.

Both see the national debt -- the accumulation of annual budget deficits -- as nearly doubling over the next decade.

The revised White House estimates project that the economy will contract by 2.8 percent this year, more than twice what the White House predicted earlier this year.

Jim Kuhnhenn

Associated Press, August 25, 2009

If the federal government’s budget projections were off by more than 100%, how far could Greensboro’s, Guilford County’s and North Carolina’s be?