(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons) 

BY VICTORIA CRAIG 

You're watching multisource video news analysis from Newsy. 

A Congressional Budget Office report says the U.S. is on track to rack up a $1.1 trillion deficit. Sounds like a hefty bill-- but the number isn’t as high as last year’s deficit figures. Minneapolis’ KMSP takes us through the trend.

“The government is on track to run a $1.1 trillion deficit this fiscal year. It will be the fourth year in a row the US spends at least a trillion dollars more than it brings in.”

That $1.1 trillion is less than the $1.3 trillion deficit the U.S. ran last fiscal year-- but lawmakers agree-- those numbers need to shrink. According to The New York Times, the solution comes down to politics.

“Republicans said [the CBO report] showed that President Obama’s policies were not working, as evidenced by the high deficit, the rapidly increasing debt and continued high unemployment. However, Democrats said the report confirmed their argument that new revenue, as well as spending cuts, would be needed to solve the nation’s fiscal problems, and that a stronger economy was the best way to reduce the deficit.”

So what are the proposed solutions?  Houston’s KTRK explains one of the Congressional Budget Office’s ideas.

“It’s for Congress to do nothing at all. Those Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year and the CBO says if Congress lets the tax cuts expire, the deficit will go way down.”

But Fox Business’ Stuart Varney explains what inaction from Congress, and allowing tax cuts to expire--  could mean for the U.S.

“Yes, you get the deficit down to about $600 billion a year. Down to $600 billion a year. But, you mess up the economy. You reduce growth to one percent and you get nine percent unemployment.”

BusinessWeek expands on that point, saying tax increases are a short-term fix, likely to turn disastrous in the long-run.

“If all of the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts are allowed to take effect, CBO said, the deficit would shrink to $200 billion by 2018. The agency said that would be a blow to the economy that would drive the jobless rate to 9.2 percent...”

While lawmakers work to figure out a solution to the nation’s fiscal woes, one thing is for sure: The decision likely won’t come easy. The Wall Street Journal sums up the long-term effects of both popular options.

“...With Bush-era tax cuts and other measures allowed to expire at the end of this year and the spending cuts left in place— the total federal debt would grow by roughly $3.1 trillion over the next 10 years...But under the second scenario—with tax increases and spending cuts reversed and other temporary policy measures continued—the debt would grow by $11 trillion over that time span.”

Lawmakers are expected to decide whether they’ll renew the Bush-era tax cuts by the end of this fiscal year, which ends September 30th.