According to the White House, things are getting worse: The deficit in FY2011 will be $150 billion larger than predicted in February (Table 1, and see chart).

This is bad news for the American people, not only because more deficit is bad and unemployment remains high (even Krugman is down), but also because the administration and the Deficit Commission are already setting the stage for increased taxes in the future.

The narrative goes like this: The deficit is getting worse because of a lack in tax revenue, and while we don’t have recommendations about how to cut spending, we can tell you right now that we need more taxes.

The truth is that we are in this situation because we overspent, made excuses for it, and lied about it. Raising taxes won’t address the budget gap and it won’t address the basic deficit problem, which is too much spending. Raising taxes will only make the level of economic uncertainty worse than it already is. (Here is a good NPR story about how companies aren’t not hiring and investing because of the uncertainty.)

Sen. Judd Greg on the new numbers:

It should come as no surprise that after five months of unchecked spending by the Democratic Congress, our fiscal situation is getting worse, not better,” said Senator Gregg. “Deficits in the coming years will be astronomical, for as far as economists are able to project. We knew the outlook was dire earlier in the year, but that didn’t stand in the way of the Democrat’s $2.5 trillion health care package or the $34 billion in new mandatory spending that the President has proposed since he put his budget out in February.
Furthermore, the Mid-Session Review applauds the Administration’s Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act as a fiscal discipline tool enacted since the Budget was sent to Congress in February this year. What it fails to mention is that the Democrats have abandoned fiscal responsibility by excluding $69 billion of deficit spending from the official Pay-Go ledger.