White House says economy movement key to deficit

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - The Obama administration cannot start dealing with the short-term challenges presented by the deficit until it gets the economy moving, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.

"Unless we get our economy moving again we're going to have a very hard time dealing with the economic downturn that exacerbates the deficit," Gibbs said after the White House pushed up its forecast for the U.S. budget deficit for this year by $89 billion to $1.84 trillion.

"The change in some of the figures today versus a few months ago are a direct result of a downturn in the economy and the tax receipts that it does or does not produce," he said. "Unless or until we get our economy moving again it's going to be hard to deal with these short term challenges that the deficit presents." (Reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Bill Trott)