Accepting ‘fiscal cliff’ would speed recession

WASHINGTON – The Congressional Budget Office issued new dire projections for the U.S. economy on Wednesday, warning that if lawmakers failed to act, the large-scale fiscal tightening set to occur next year will push the nation into a deeper downturn than previously thought and cause the unemployment rate to jump back up to about 9 percent.

The nonpartisan CBO, in its semiannual budget outlook, forecast that the economy would shrink 0.5 percent next year if lawmakers failed to avert the so-called fiscal cliff and allowed expiring tax cuts, mandatory spending reductions and other policy changes to take effect in January.

Previously, the agency projected that economic output would contract in the first half of next year, probably sending the nation into recession, but still manage to grow 0.5 percent for the year.

The new outlook says the unemployment rate would rise to 9.1 percent by the end of 2013, up from 8.2 percent forecast for the fourth quarter of this year. The latest actual jobless figure was 8.3 percent in July.

On the other hand, with higher taxes, broad federal spending cuts as well as the end of the payroll tax holiday, the nation’s budget picture would look significantly better next year. If Congress did nothing, the CBO said, the deficit will fall to $641 billion in fiscal 2013, which begins Oct. 1. That would be down substantially from a deficit of $1.1 trillion now seen for the current fiscal year.

The nation’s deficit has exceeded $1 trillion for four straight years, and the accumulated federal debt held by the public this year will reach 73 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, or the total value of the goods and services produced, according to the CBO. That’s the highest level since 1950, the office said, and about double the debt-to-GDP ratio at the end of 2007 before the deep recession.