Government Optimism

Mark Thoma sends us to Jeff Frankel about over-optimistic official forecasts.

Unrealistic macroeconomic assumptions, fanciful theories about tax cuts, and legislation that deliberately misrepresented policy plans ... explain the failure to run surpluses during the economic expansion from 2002-2007: if growth is projected to last indefinitely, retrenchment is regarded as unnecessary.

Apparently, government folks don't like erring on the side of caution.  Some interesting decisions made with regards to budgeting, and explained rather well by Frankel.  The Office of Management and Budget are the guys churning out these budget forecasts; I'm pretty sure this is a "both party" problem, so no finger pointing, please.