Congressional Unit Concurs in Deficit Forecast

The Congressional Budget Office today joined the Reagan Administration in predicting a record deficit this year and said Congress will miss its Gramm-Rudman targets in fiscal 1987 even if every promise in the budget is carried out.

The CBO projected about $224 billion in red ink for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Although that is $6 billion lower than the estimate released Wednesday by the President’s Office of Management and Budget (story on Page 20), it would still eclipse the $212-billion deficit record set in 1985.

The reports come a year after Congress passed a fiscal 1986 budget predicting just $172 billion in red ink, and five months after the first spending cuts under the Gramm-Rudman law, which trimmed $11.7 billion across the board.

Military, Farm Programs

President Reagan’s top economic and budget advisers said Wednesday that slower-than-expected growth in the economy is to blame for the record red ink, along with higher spending on military and farm programs.

Their predictions of a new economic boom were delayed, not wrong, they said.

The OMB said that even if the economy rebounds in the next few months and through next year, continuing current services will leave a fiscal 1987 deficit of $171.5 billion.

Using the same standard but a less rosy economic forecast, the CBO today predicted $184 billion in red ink next year, $40 billion more than the Gramm-Rudman target. Even if Congress did everything it promised in its budget resolution, which was designed to meet the mandate, the deficit would be $161 billion, CBO said.