Posted on 01/12/2007 11:34:40 AM PST by Brilliant
The federal deficit has improved significantly in the first three months of the new budget year, helped by a continued surge in tax revenues.
In its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Friday that the deficit from October through December totaled $80.4 billion, the smallest imbalance for the first three months of a budget year since 2002. The budget year ends Sept. 30.
Tax collections are running 8.2 percent higher than a year ago while government spending is up by just 0.7 percent from a year ago...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Why is this considered good news? Overdrawing your checking account is bad. Overdrawing by 80+ billion in three months is real bad.
What happened 4 years ago?.. to raise the deficit?..
Who raised it?... and by how much?..
If the Deficit was $80 Billion for 3 months, that's only $900,000,000 a day, not $1.6B.
It still sucks, but it's a start.
| YEAR | On-budget deficit |
|---|---|
| 1997 | $103.2 B |
| 1998 | $ 29.9 B |
| 1999 | $(1.9) B |
| 2000 | $(86.4) B |
| 2001 | $32.4 B |
| 2002 | $317.4 B |
| 2003 | $538.4 B |
| 2004 | $568.0 B |
| 2005 | $493.6 B |
| 2006 | $437 B (*) |
115 against. 200 and some in favor. Don't know what the party breakdown is.
National Debt, 9/29/06 (FY end) = $8,506,973,899,215.23
National Debt, 1/10/07 = $8,673,367,073,665.76
Difference = $166,393,174,450.53
Additional Debt per day (103 days) = $1,615,467,713.11
He's right. The debt has increased by approximately $1.6B PER DAY since September 29.
Keep in mind, day of the week can matter as debt is issued on certain days regardless of the calendar date, and is issued before the money is spent.
However, the on-budget numbers end up very close to the total debt numbers. The $80 B number you're using is AFTER they raid SSI, railroad, gov't pensions, etc....
The fact that people drink the koolaid the government (both parties) spew in terms of using off-budget numbers doesn't mean its right.
Yup.
You will find this article buried at the bottom of page 23B in the second section of your local newspaper.
The new fiscal year to date:
CURRENT YEAR
OCTOBER: 49 billion deficit
NOVEMBER: 75 billion deficit
DECEMBER: 44 billion surplus
YEAR-TO-DATE: 80 billion deficit
http://fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1206.txt
I dont't have much use for the media but how are they suppose to report 4 quarter news in early November???
I agree with your views and comments. I might spend money differently, but the point of elections is that local people ask someone to go and represent them. If someone wants a bike path instead of a street - that is what they voted for and are entitled to by reason of their vote.
The fact that people drink the koolaid the government (both parties) spew in terms of using off-budget numbers doesn't mean its right.
Correct. Following are figures from the latest Monthly Treasury Statement:
SURPLUS (+) OR DEFICIT (-) (billions of dollars)
Fiscal Prior
Year to Fiscal
Oct Nov Dec Date Year
-------------------------------- ------- ------- ------- -------- --------
Total-surplus (+) or deficit (-) -49.321 -75.615 44.535 -80.401 -119.381
(On-budget)..................... -51.836 -76.423 -7.104 -135.362 -169.626
(Off-budget).................... 2.514 0.807 51.639 54.961 50.245
Source: Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the U.S. Government, page 29,
online at http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts1206.pdf
As can be seen, the "total" or "reported" deficit for the past three months was $80.4 billion but the on-budget deficit was $135.4 billion. The latter figure includes the monies being borrowed from Social Security. Furthermore, according to the following figures from the Treasury website, the total debt has increased $173.2 billion in the past three months, over double the reported deficit of $80.4 billion.
TOTAL FEDERAL DEBT (billions of dollars)
Intra-
Fiscal Debt Held Gov't Total
Year End by Public Change Holdings Change Debt Change
---------- --------- -------- --------- -------- --------- --------
12/29/2006 4901.0 57.9* 3779.2 115.3* 8680.2 173.2*
9/29/2006 4843.1 241.9 3663.9 332.4 8507.0 574.3
9/30/2005 4601.2 293.9 3331.5 259.8 7932.7 553.7
9/30/2004 4307.3 383.3 3071.7 212.6 7379.1 595.8
9/30/2003 3924.1 370.9 2859.1 184.1 6783.2 555.0
9/30/2002 3553.2 213.9 2675.1 206.9 6228.2 420.8
9/28/2001 3339.3 -66.0 2468.2 199.3 5807.5 133.3
9/28/2000 3405.3 -230.8 2268.9 248.7 5674.2 17.9
9/30/1999 3636.1 -97.8 2020.2 227.8 5656.3 130.1
9/30/1998 3733.9 -55.8 1792.3 168.9 5526.2 113.0
9/30/1997 3789.7 1623.5 5413.1
* change for first three months
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt,
online at http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm
The total debt includes the monies being borrowed from all of the trust funds, including Social Security. This is the debt that is currently approaching $9 trillion and has been increasing by over a half trillion dollar a year for the past four years. It will likely increase by over a half trillion dollars again this year. Hence, while we should be glad that the deficit is not increasing faster, there is little to celebrate in these figures.
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