When Will the Press Catch On to Uncle Sam’s Collections Meltdown?

A blog at Newsbusters ^ | April 22, 2009 | Tom Blumer

[wafflehouse]

In April 2008, the US Treasury collected an all-time record $407.3 billion ($403.75 billion after subtracting the first $3.35 billion wave of stimulus checks, which really should have been treated as outlays, that went out just before month-end). It was an indication that, as I said at the time, "many (entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and investors) are thinking, in the face of relentless media harping to the contrary, that 2008 will be at least as profitable (as 2007)."

This year, it's shaping up to be the "Bailout Year Bummer." Uncle Sam's fiscal year began on October 1 of last year, mere days before Congress passed the legislation that has come to be known as TARP, and a bit more than three months after Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid promised to starve the economy of energy and punitively tax its highest producers, creating what I have since called the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy.

Through March, federal receipts were running 14% behind the previous year. Each month during the fiscal year has trailed the previous year, and degree of the difference has steadily increased.

My estimate of April's final result is almost 40% lower than April 2008, and further ratchets down the trend of collections decay that goes back to last summer. The receipts shortfall is far more than one would expect from an economy that shrank only 1.74% in the final half of last year (without annualization, the economy shrank 0.125% in the third quarter, and 1.614% in the fourth). It is also probably far greater than the White House and the Congressional Budget Office are anticipating.

It would appear that getting to $250 billion by month-end might be a stretch.

So when does the receipts crater become news?

[wafflehouse]

Article at link has some additional tables as images.. i didnt want to hotlink

[twistedwrench]

“With eight days left in April, personal income tax receipts crested $5 billion – less than half the $12.8 billion collected in April 2008 and almost $4 billion short of the $8.9 billion, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance estimates the state will take in during the month.”

http://californiascapitol.com/blog/?p=351

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The purpose of threating to prosecute ex-Bush administration officials is to avoid a serious investigation of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) budget.

Rahm’s plan is to keep Bush on the front page, not Hussein.

[Leisler]

The 10 Rules of Bureaucracy
Published April 21st, 2009
1. Preserve thyself.

2. It is easier to fix the blame than to fix the problem.

3. A penny saved is an oversight.

4. Information deteriorates upward.

5. The first 90 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time; the last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

6. Experience is what you get just after you need it.

7. For any given large, complex, hard-to-understand, expensive problem, there exists at least one short, simple, easy, cheap wrong answer.

8. Anything that can be changed will be, until time runs out.

9. To err is human; to shrug is civil service.

10. There’s never enough time to do it right, but there’s always enough time to do it over.

[Texas Fossil]

U.S.Receipts.txt

Month	Collections	Year Ago	Change
Oct. 2008	165797	178176	−0.069
Nov. 2008	145853	151055	−0.034
Dec. 2008	238017	276982	−0.141
Jan. 2009	226109	255217	−0.114
Feb. 2009	87328	105723	−0.174
Mar. 2009	128957	178816	−0.279
Apr. 2009 estimated	250000	407106	−0.386

[Lee'sGhost]

“So when does the receipts crater become news?”

Whenever they figure out to make it look like Bush’s fault.

[a fool in paradise]

Hey Obama, when you are IN a hole, stop digging!

[a fool in paradise]

The Democrats’ plan (as identified by Ronald Reagan)
1) If it moves, tax it.
2) If it keeps moving, regulate it.
3) And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

[WoofDog123]

some folks are gonna have cap gain loss carryforwards for years to come. Generally cap gain tax receipts will vanish for 2008. It is going to be nasty.

[Darwin Fish]

Funny thing is happening under the new Obama socialism:

Borrow record amounts, while revenues are tanking.

Atlas is shrugging.

[MNDude]

My wife is a naturalized citizen from Mexico.

She was arguing with an American woman from church who was telling her “but those people are so poor, we should let them all in”

My wife then told her “I’m sorry, but I’m from Mexico and I know my people. The poorest people there cannot afford a $3000 fee for a coyote or the plane tickets or the thousands of dollars you need in a bank account in order to get a visa”