US deficits higher than Obama forecasts: Congressional Budget Office

President Barack Obama's budget would increase the US deficit in 2011 to 2020 by $1.2 trillion more than the White House has forecast, the Congressional Budget Office said on Friday.

The CBO report fuelled immediate criticism from Republicans who said Obama was raising US government debt to "alarming" levels.

"Measured relative to the size of the economy, the deficit under the President's proposals would fall to about 4 percent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by 2014 but would rise steadily thereafter," the CBO said in a preliminary analysis.

CBO forecast the US deficit in fiscal year 2010 under Obama's proposal at $1.5 trillion, which it said was "$56 billion less than the administration's figure, largely because of differences in baseline estimates of spending."

"In contrast, largely because it projects lower baseline revenues in future years, CBO estimates deficits that are $75 billion higher for 2011 and $1.2 trillion greater over the 2011-2020 period than what the administration anticipates under the president's budget," CBO said.

When he unveiled his budget for fiscal 2011 in early February, Obama pledged to cut the US deficit in half by the end of his first term, but made tackling high unemployment his immediate priority.

The budget outlined some expected savings from the reform of Medicare and Medicaid entitlement programs that care for elderly and poor Americans.

Obama also proposed to allow tax cuts to expire on affluent American families that make more than $250,000 a year to raise $678 billion over the next decade.

Republicans on the House of Representatives Budget Committee seized on the new CBO analysis, which they said showed Obama's budget increasing US "debt to an alarming 90% of the economy by 2020."

"Interest on the debt becomes one of the largest spending categories in the federal budget, and would more than quadruple in the next 10 years, rising from $209 billion this year to $916 billion in 2020," the Republicans said.