The Trump administration has released its federal budget for 2020. The document lays out taxing and spending proposals and provides projections through 2029.
The chart compares Trump’s proposed revenues and spending to the most recent CBO projections. These are from CBO’s “alternative fiscal scenario” (AFS), which assumes that the Trump tax cuts do not expire after 2025 and that discretionary budget caps are lifted.
The Trump budget also assumes that the tax cuts do not expire. However, his budget is much more optimistic about economic growth than the CBO, and so estimated revenues are higher.
Note that the tax cuts went into effect in 2018 but federal revenues did not fall. Revenues would have been higher without the cuts, but rising deficits are being driven by relentless spending increases, not a shortage of revenues.
Even with the tax cuts in place, revenues are expected to rise from $3.5 trillion this year to $5.3 trillion in 2029 under the CBO projections. If we restrained annual spending growth to a reasonable 1.8 percent, the budget would be balanced in 10 years.