(12 Feb 2018) President Trump is proposing a $4 trillion-plus budget that projects a $1 trillion or so federal deficit.
AP's Economic Reporter Josh Boak says the plan is like a 'Christmas list, a wish list' that amounts to a 'massive bet'.
Unlike the plan Trump released last year, the 2019 budget never comes close to promising a balanced federal ledger even after 10 years.
And that's before last week's agreement for $300 billion is added this year and next, a deal that showers both the Pentagon and domestic agencies with big budget increases.
The budget plan released assumes economic growth will climb above 3 percent and eventually settle into a solid 2.8 percent groove.
Faster growth, up from a recent average of 2 percent, coupled with domestic spending cuts to programs including Medicare would ultimately reduce the national debt as a share of the U.S. economy.
And Trump isn't just looking to add to the federal debt: his goal of leveraging $200 billion into $1.5 trillion worth of infrastructure also requires state and local governments to borrow much more heavily.
The plan amounts to a gamble that nothing can slow a highflying U.S. economy and force a reckoning over the debt.
The spending spree, along with last year's tax cuts, has the deficit moving sharply higher with Republicans in control of Washington.
The original plan was for Trump's new budget to slash domestic agencies even further than last year's proposal, but instead it will land in Congress three days after he signed a two-year spending agreement that wholly rewrites both.
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