BULLETIN >> U.S. FEDERAL DEFICIT SHRINKS TO $53 BLN IN JULY

Dow Jones Big Charts.MarketWatch.com ^ | 8/10/05 | Rex Nutting, MarketWatch

[SierraWasp]

BULLETIN >> U.S. FEDERAL DEFICIT SHRINKS TO $53 BLN IN JULY

[johnmecainrino]

Bush's budget was lean this year, it was the democrats and rino's that blocked his medicare and social service cuts.

Bush gets blamed for everything when he has very little control to do anything.

There is no line item veto in the president's power anymore.

He submits a lean budget but the dems block the spending cuts and then Bush gets blamed.

[CasearianDaoist]

I am not talking to you until my cell leader gives me the green light.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

What's most surprising is not the increase in revenues, but the decline in outlays (spending).

That is surprising. Hopefully this trend can continue.

[SierraWasp]

Ok, lemme see if I got this straight... Only you knee-jerk negativity dudes have all yer stuff together and alla us knee-jerk optimisty dudes are full of it, right?

That's the same reasoning behind "Moderates!" By never allowing themselves to become committed to anything concrete, they then can appear wiser and more anal-ytical than all the rest of us by playing it safe, right?

Yawn!!!

[CasearianDaoist]

Of your politics, you mean?

[johnmecainrino]

The other side is what is killing us.

The dems blocked all the cuts in social services they blocked the medicare cuts.

The budget defecit is 100 billion less than last year. The tax cuts are working.

You can't fix everything overnight. 100 billion improvement every year and the budget will be balanced in the future.

[BureaucratusMaximus]

Just beat the other side. That's all that matters. Ra ra, sis boom bah.

No...the appropriate terminology is: "JUST WIN BABY!"

[BOBTHENAILER]

WTF indeed, Mr. Rubin, put some salt & pepper on your past words and commence to eatin' 'em.

[Dolphan]

Then don't come to the highway spending thread, where everyone is cheering the "new jobs" all these hundreds of billions in spending is going to create.

"Just read the press release from Caterpillar!"

[SierraWasp]

Personally, I think he should "shove 'em!!!"

[Huck]

Ok, lemme see if I got this straight... Only you knee-jerk negativity dudes have all yer stuff together

I see you have optimistically opened with a straw man argument. The old "either/or" gambit. You falsely present our disagreement as a choice between total optimism or total negativity. In reality, all I was pointing out was something obvious even to a 10 year old. That sometimes bad things really do happen, and the mature, wise thing to do when that happens is to face it, not to bury your head in the sand.

and alla us knee-jerk optimisty dudes are full of it, right?

The correct application of optimism in this situation would not be to delude yourself that a deficit of 300 billion is good news. Clearly, it isn't. The optimist would say that even though the situation looks bad, we can work our way out of it. But that's not what you're doing. You are pretending everything is fine because doing so makes you feel good.

That's the same reasoning behind "Moderates!" By never allowing themselves to become committed to anything

I very clearly committed to the fact that a 300 billion deficit is bad. You just want to be on a winning team and feel good. I want to face facts and deal with them. I'd say my approach is more optimistic, because unlike you, I haven't retreated into self-delusion.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

You can surely bet the farm that the MSM and Perky Katie either will take their time reporting this to the American public, or try to find ways to avoid reporting this, or won't report it at all to the American public ( that is ? of course, if this was a Democrat President and Congress ).

[BOBTHENAILER]

Receipts are up 13.7% in the year to date at $1.75 trillion. Individual income taxes are up 15.1% to $756.1 billion, while corporate income taxes are up 41.7% to $205.9 billion.

"How ya gonna pay for that tax cut for the rich Mr. President", sayeth JFKerry and all other RATS.

[Rebelbase]

Wait a minute. For months prior to Nov. 2004 the Media told us we were in the worst economy in 40 years.

If that was true then this has to be the best turnaround in 40 years. Where's the story on that?

[Huck]

The other side is what is killing us... they blocked the medicare cuts.

Remind me who recently created a brand new, 400+ billion dollar Medicare entitlement. George W something or other. Ring any bells?

[Southack]

"I wonder if this includes the new highway bill, or if that'll show up later."

There's no debt at all in the Highway Bill (now law). Massive transportation bills are funded from gasoline taxes that accumulate into trust funds first, then are later allocated by Congress for specific projects.

That's the opposite approach of the regular Federal Budget, which is typically spending money first, then hoping to collect *income* tax revenues later (or to sell debt on the Market) to pay the piper.

If you factored in the Highway Bill to the federal budget for 2005, you'd *SUBTRACT* the gasoline trust funds ($286 Billion) from our current budget debt ($303 Billion so far this year). Of course, it would be silly to play those sorts of numbers games with the books (it's a 6 year highway bill, for one thing, and for another thing that would leave future Administrations with a pile of highway debt). So thankfully, that isn't being done.

Highway spending is from a gasoline tax trust fund. Federal Budget spending, in contrast, is based on anticipated future income tax reciepts and Fed issued debt.

So there is a dichotomy. Federal Budget spending comes from income taxes and debt. Federal Highway spending comes from the trust fund built up by gasoline taxes.

Different beasts.

In fact, the gasoline tax keeps sucking money *out* of our economy if there are no Highway Transportation bills. That's the worst of all worlds. Taxes with no spending.

It took 2 years to get this new Highway Bill (now law), during which time you never saw the federal gasoline tax cease being collected at the gas pump.

But once you get a Highway Bill, that gasoline money can at least be pumped back into our economy (rather than be out of circulation). Of course, even that's not ideal, but it beats just getting taxed for nothing.

[expat_panama]

Wow, that's quite a graph-- it even shows the deficits we've had back in 2010!  The reason they're so up to date is that centrists.org is staffed with people from the DLC and NPR.

[SierraWasp]

Well, I'll be dipped!!! You ARE a "centrist!" You posted a chart from "Centrist.org" that includes the non-existant "surplus" from the Clinton years, based on the "irrational exuberance" Greenspan spotted clear back in 1996!!!

By the way, we're NOT headed toward any more of a cliff than we were under Carter and we pulled that iron out of the fire in fine shape!!! Get a grip, will ya??? You're addicted to negativity!!!

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Well, for this year, we did have that one month ( I think, it was March, or April ) were we had a record receipts for revenue for the Federal income for the month.

[RightWhale]

If this keeps up the deficit will be gone by the end of Bush's term and maybe we can start paying down the debt again.