We'll balance the budget by 2012 -- unless we're still at war

Posted 37 weeks 3 days ago by Joel

The Congressional Budget Office makes an important observation:

Under the President’s proposals, the deficit would steadily diminish from 2009 through 2012, at which point the budget would be balanced; it would remain close to balance in most years through 2018.

Well, that's good news! It's great to see that fiscal sanity has returned to the --

Several key factors contribute to these outcomes, however. In particular, the President’s proposals exclude funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after 2009, incorporate significant reductions in discretionary spending relative to the size of the economy, and project a substantial expansion of the impact of the alternative minimum tax (AMT).

-- oh. Never mind.