by Caitlin Kenney

The Congressional Budget Office says it expects the deficit to reach $1.845 trillion this year, if President Obama's current budget proposals are enacted. The most recent estimate is nearly $600 billion more than the CBO predicted just six weeks ago before Congress passed the stimulus package and an omnibus spending bill.

Although the CBO number is higher than the White House's own estimate of $1.75 trillion, House Budget Director Peter Orszag told the Wall Street Journal that a deary economic and fiscal outlook would not keep President Obama from accomplishing his budget goals.

 

The Journal reports:

...Mr. Orszag said, "We remain confident that the four key principles that the president put forward for the budget — in particular, that it must invest in health care, that it must invest in education, that it must invest in clean energy and that it must cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term — will all be accomplished as the resolutions move through committee next week."

The $1.845 trillion deficit estimate amounts to 13.1 percent of GDP.