Source: FOXBusiness
US deficit soars to $342B in two months ~ shortfall for 2019 was $984B
The U.S. government deficit spiked 12 percent to $342 billion during the first two months of fiscal year 2020, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO says the U.S. budget deficit will average $1.2 trillion a year from 2020 to 2029, amounting to 4.4 percent to 4.8 percent of gross domestic product.
During October and November, revenue rose 3 percent from a year ago to $471 billion. Receipts from individual and payroll taxes climbed 4 percent, or $17 billion, while receipts from corporate income taxes were up 14 percent, or $1 billion. Receipts from other sources, such as excise taxes and customs duties, fell 11 percent, or $5 billion.
Meanwhile, expenditures rose 6 percent to $813 billion during the first two months of the fiscal year, which runs from October through September. Spending on mandatory programs, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, was up $22 billion, or 7 percent. Outlays for military programs of the Department of Defense climbed 7 percent, or $8 billion, while Department of Education spending climbed $3 billion, or 25 percent.
….where have all the teabaggers gone?
last time I saw those rw kooks (reincarnated as MAGA heads) they were stapling teabags to their heads while wailing about Obama's deficits...…….freakin morons lol
"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
A lie doesn't become the truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good just because it is accepted by a majority.
Author: Booker T. Washington
cancel2 2022 (12-10-2019)
Cypress (12-10-2019)
shucks.....I wish we had 2020 to do over.....
Isaiah 6:5
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Isaiah 6:5
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Despite his promises, Trump pushes deficit past $1 trillion mark
09/13/19 08:41 AM—UPDATED 09/13/19 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen
After the Great Recession ended, it seemed as if trillion-dollar deficits were a thing of the past. As the Wall Street Journal reported late yesterday, pointing to new data from the Treasury Department, we’ve again passed the threshold – and it’s worth understanding why.A strong economy typically leads to narrower deficits, as rising household income and corporate profits help boost tax collections, while spending on safety-net programs such as unemployment insurance tends to decline.I should emphasize that there’s still another month remaining in the fiscal year, which will likely affect the overall deficit for the 12-month period. That said, it’s a safe bet that the deficit will still exceed $1 trillion.
The U.S. economy has been growing for 10 years as of July, the longest economic expansion on record. Yet annual U.S. deficits are on track to exceed $1 trillion starting this year, due in part to the 2017 tax law, which constrained federal revenue collection last year, and a 2018 budget deal that busted spending caps enacted in 2011.
These aren’t exactly the fiscal results Donald Trump promised the electorate before his election. As regular readers may recall, in February 2016, the future president appeared on Fox News and assured viewers that, if he were president, he could start paying off the national debt “ .” The Republican argued at the time that it would simply be a matter of looking at the country as “a profit-making corporation” instead of “a losing corporation.”
A month later, in March 2016, Trump declared at a debate that he could cut trillions of dollars in spending by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Asked for a specific example, he said, “We’re cutting Common Core.” (Common Core is an education curriculum. It costs the federal government almost nothing.)
A month after that, in April 2016, Trump declared that he was confident that he could “get rid of” the entire multi-trillion-dollar debt “fairly quickly.” Pressed to be more specific, the future president replied, “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.”
By July 2016, he boasted that once his economic agenda was in place, “we’ll start paying off that debt like water.”
As Catherine Rampbell recently explained, “Federal deficits have widened immensely under Trump’s leadership. This is striking not only because he promised fiscal responsibility – at one time even pledging to eliminate the national debt within eight years – but also because it’s a historical anomaly…. Trump’s own policies are to blame for this aberration.”
That’s plainly true. The White House and congressional Republicans swore up and down in late 2017 that they could slash taxes for the wealthy and big corporations without increasing the deficit because, as they repeatedly insisted, “tax cuts pay for themselves.” We didn’t need additional evidence that their ridiculous belief was, and is, wrong, but we have the evidence anyway.
As Paul Krugman added a couple of months ago, “[T]he Trump tax cut caused a huge rise in the budget deficit, which the administration expects to hit $1 trillion this year, up from less than $600 billion in 2016. This tidal wave of red ink is even more extraordinary than it looks, because it has taken place despite falling unemployment, which usually leads to a falling deficit.”
It’s an important detail. Every time we discuss the deficit, I feel compelled to point out again that I’m not a deficit hawk, and I firmly believe that larger deficits, under some circumstances, are absolutely worthwhile and necessary.
These are not, however, those circumstances. When the economy is in trouble, it makes sense for the United States to borrow more, invest more, cushion the blow, and help strengthen the economy.
The Trump White House and the Republican-led Congress, however, decided to approve massive tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations when the economy was already healthy – not because they were addressing a policy need, but because they were fulfilling an ideological goal.
The results speak for themselves, though I put together the chart above to help drive the point home. Red columns point to Republican administrations, blue columns point to Democratic administrations, and red-and-blue columns point to years in which the fiscal year was split between presidents from two different parties.
WK1 3/28-/4 _Cases 301k--Dead 18.1k Lethality 2.72%
WK2 4/5-/13 _Cases 555k--Dead 22.1K Lethality 3.9%
WK3 4/20-/21 Cases 774k -Dead 37.2K Lethality 4.8%
WK4 4/22-/29 Cases 1M --Dead 58.8K Lethality 5.9%
WK5 5/1-/8__ Cases 1.3M -Dead 75.7K Lethality 6.1%
WK6 5/9-16__Cases 1.4M --Dead 85.8K Lethality 6.1%
WK7 5/17-24_Cases 1.7M - Dead 97.6K Lethality 5.9%
WK8 5/28 Cases 1.7M - DEAD 101.2K - Same
Bookmarks