Posted on 01/12/2006 12:11:32 PM PST by Small-L
Corporate Taxes, Gov't Spending Hit Records Jan 12 2:33 PM US/Eastern Email this story
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON
The federal government posted the first budget surplus for December in three years as corporate tax payments hit an all-time high, helping offset a record level for spending, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.
The department said in its monthly budget report that government receipts surpassed spending by $10.98 billion last month. A year ago, the government ran a deficit of $2.85 billion in December.
The improvement reflected the fact that government receipts were up 12.1 percent from a year ago to $241.88 billion while government spending rose by a slower 5.6 percent to $230.9 billion. The figure for outlays still represented an all-time high for spending for any month.
Corporate income tax collections totaled a record $73.5 billion last month, surpassing the old record of $72 billion set in September.
Even with December's surplus, experts are predicting that the budget deficit for this year could well surge above $400 billion, reflecting increased government spending to help with reconstruction efforts in hurricane-ravaged states along the Gulf Coast.
The largest deficit in dollar terms was an imbalance of $413 billion in 2004. Last year, the deficit narrowed to $377 billion as a surge of tax revenues from an improving economy helped offset rising government spending.
President Bush has vowed to cut the deficit in half by 2009 and still preserve the tax cuts he pushed through Congress in his first term.
Treasury Secretary John Snow said this week that the administration plans to lower the deficit through stringent controls on spending, which he said would be evident in the budget proposal for 2007 that Bush will send to Congress in early February.
However, budget experts are already predicting that Congress will balk at making sharp cuts in the growth of popular government programs, especially in an election year.
Through the first three months of the current budget year, which began on Oct. 1, government tax receipts have totaled $530.2 billion, up 8.8 percent from the same period a year ago.
Government spending totals $649.52 billion, a 7.2 percent increase from the same period a year ago. That resulted in a deficit for the first three months of the government's budget year of $119.31 billion, up 1.1 percent from the same period a year ago.
The December surplus marked the first surplus for that month since December 2002.
How can corporate taxes be at a record level? The liberals keep telling me that Bush cut their taxes and they pay virtually no taxes. Same with the rich. Its the poor and middle class pay all the taxes they tell me.
your republican government at work.
Didn't Bush CUT taxes? Oh, right, he cut RATES, creating a BOOMING economy and higher revenue.....
The poor and middle class pay plenty of taxes by means of the corporate tax. They are just too stupid to realize the costs are passed on.
If anyone would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House(HR25) & Saxby Chambliss Senate(S25) offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and SS/Medicare payroll taxes outright and replace them with with a national retail sales tax administered by the states.
H.R.25,S.25
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information:
Nice legacy the Republican Party's got going there - steal more, spend more.
So, Republicans, how's that "limited government" thingie you've been promising us for decades coming along . . . . . hmmmmm?
No, it should have been headlined Steal More, Spend More
Yes, of course. And the Republican Party spent it all, plus a few hundred billion more in debt.
Still crappy results. 5.6% increase in spending? WHY?
Why is it that you have to go back to Nixon to find a Republican administration that actually did anything about debt control (even Reagan couldn't help himself from **requesting** congress to pass budgets that continually built debt higher and higher)?
Yes, but the Republicans campaigned on promises to end that and restore limited government if they had the ability to do so.
They've had the ability for years, and we're tired of waiting. It's just more Big Stupid Government crap from the Republican liars.
I just noticed a mistake in my statement in post 13. I stated "spending beyond their means". I should have said spending beyond our means.
I should have said spending beyond our means.
Better.
Much better would be: we are spending beyond our means.
It is our money after all.
Bush can't even get a left-handed compliment from the AP.
I see nothing in this article that credits Bush's tax rate cuts with the economic growth that resulted in the larger tax receipts. The economy just grew magically all on its own -- probably in spite of the tax rate cuts as far as the AP is concerned.
Corp. Taxes are NOT 'higher than ever', Corp. Tax revenue is.
Spending... well that one is correct.
Typical misleading headline.
The ironic thing is, if Bill Clinton were in office and the Democrats were running Congress, and the government spending kept increasing and increasing, breaking all kinds of records like it did last month, this thread would be 20+ pages long with God knows how many 100s of responses.
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