国际英语新闻：U.S. budget deficit projected to explode over next decade: White House

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- The White House said on Tuesday the federal government could face a cumulative deficit of 9.05 trillion U.S. dollars from 2010-2019.

    The figure, released by the White House budget office, is 2 trillion dollars more than the estimates made by the Obama administration in May.

    Nearly at the same time, the Congressional Budget Office projected in a report a cumulative 7 trillion U.S. dollars of deficit from 2010-2019, a figure roughly 2 trillion less than the White House one.

    The Congressional report said the deficit this year will total 1.6 trillion dollars.

    The White House figures also showed that the public debt is projected to double by 2019 and reach a size that counts for as much as three quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

    Meanwhile, the projections predicted that U.S. unemployment could spike to as high as 10 percent this year although the average is expected to be 9.3 percent in 2009.

    Christina Romer, economic adviser for President Barack Obama, said that the unemployment could begin a slow decline next year with a projected average of 9.8 percent in 2010.

    "This recession was simply worse than the information that we and other forecasters had back in last fall and early this winter," Romer said.