Posted on 01/11/2013 11:55:59 AM PST by blam
The US Deficit Almost Completely Disappeared In December
Sam Ro
January 11, 2013
The U.S. December budget deficit was just $260 million. This is according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement from the Financial Management Service.
Economists were forecasting a deficit of closer to $1 billion.
The December deficit was also the lowest December number since 2007, reports Bloomberg.
It's worth noting that monthly numbers are noisy, and that seasonal factors tend to be considerable in December.
Regardless, this is an encouraging sign.
Receipts were $269.5 billion while the spending was $269.7 billion. This is important to remember, because budget deficits and surpluses aren't just about spending levels. Indeed, growth plays just as important a role.
As GDP grows, the deficit shrinks. To better understand this, read this and this.
Here's a look at some historical numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Estimated tax payments for realized capital gains decisions made in advance of new taxes.
I guess this is the new meme they are trying out: “There is no deficit...and even if there is, it doesn’t matter.”
Haven’t thought it through yet but I’d bet corporations reacting to anticipated 2013 tax increases had something to with this.
Where did it go?
The Business Insider again. LOL!
It’s likely all accounting tricks.
(Just like Clinton’s ‘surplus’ didn’t exist.)
I almost won the lottery!
I guess spending $200M more than you received is considered good now...
Just like the four years of Clinton's "surpluses" that coincided with the four years that people could pay the taxes on money they rolled over from conventional IRAs to Roth IRAs.
“deficits don’t matter” - Dick Cheney.
Don’t try this at home!
I don’t understand how the deficit could “disappear” when we have trillions of dollars in debt. I’d be grateful for a logical explanation.
On December 31, 2012 the national debt was $16,432,730,050,569.12.
It appears this was mostly due to accruing additional interest debt.
Perhaps the reason for this stasis is that Treasury was manipulating payments to keep from exceeding the debt limit. Perhaps we will have a spike once the debt ceiling is increased.
Yeah, at $260M behind each month, you’d only be $3.12B behind after a year...
Peanuts...
The deficit is the month-to-month difference between intake and spending. The debt is the summation of each month's deficits since the beginning of time.
We don’t have to raise the debt ceiling after all. WE ARE SAVED.
Just more B.S. accounting tricks.
I agree with you, but it’s still 75% reduced from last year.
And to another poster, there is likely BS baked in the numbers, but as to the debt ceiling debate, that BS is certainly good news.
Bingo...any ‘expert’ analyst should be able to figure that out.
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