Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Laura Woodhead - Talk Radio News Service

The increasing deficit will lead to the biggest budget fight in history, economic experts predicted Tuesday. Stan Collender, Managing Director at Qorvis Communications and former Democratic congressional budget aide, said that next year's budget battle should come as no surprise.

"Partisanship is greater, it is an election year which will make things even more difficult and the [economic] problem is much more intense", he said.

Collender warned that the key political factor behind the fight would be the power of the Blue Dog Democrats, especially those running for re-election in previously Republican, fiscally conservative seats.

"This may make the California fight over the budget look relatively insignificant. Don't forget, that was only over $ 20 to $ 30 billion, here we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars," said Collender.

The comments came during a conference call, organized by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), to discuss the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office release of their updated federal budget deficit projections which rose the projected 10 year cumulative deficit to about $9 trillion.

"Both reports are very stark reminders of the steep recession that we find ourselves in today." said John Irons, Director of Research and Policy at EPI. "It also indicates the challenges we face going forward."

The President's health care reform, if it remains deficit neutral as promised, would not harm the economy both Irons and Collender said. However, Collender noted that the increased deficits will be used by both sides of the health care debate to argue their point.

"This is going to be one of those situations where everyone is going to use the numbers for their own purposes," Collender said. "Those who are against health care reform are simply going to say here is an example of why we don't need this, why we shouldn't have it, why we can't afford it. The other side is going to say this is an example of why we absolutely have to have it."