August 23, 2007 (LPAC) - The Congressional Budget Office added to the Bull Shit Index in its latest Budget and Economic Outlook, released this morning. After concluding that this year's budget deficit will only be $158 billion, it declares that "Although the economic outlook has been clouded by recent troubles in the housing market and turbulence in financial markets, the most likely scenario is for the economy to return to solid growth by early 2008." It admits that "Economic projections for the near term are subject to significant uncertainty, particularly about how problems experienced by home mortgage lenders will affect the broader availability of credit and the economy as a whole." There's no need to fear over the long term, however, as the CBO predicts 2.7 percent GDP growth over the 2009 to 2017 period (which, unfortunately, will be flattened somewhat as the baby boomers begin to retire) and inflation will only be at 2.2 percent.