In its midyear update to the budget and economic outlooks, the Congressional Budget Office paints a gloomy picture of the next few years. It predicts that growth will come in around 2.3 percent this year, and only 2.7 percent next year. The deficit will clock in at about $1.3 trillion — smaller than in the past few years, but larger than projected. And the expected unemployment scenario won’t be much better a year from now than it is today:
That’s bad news for everyone, but it’s especially bad for President Obama’s reelection hopes. By the CBO’s projections, the employment situation would be a huge drag for him if he were running in 2016, nevermind 2012.
