What happened to the Federal Deficit? Is it gone?

[Peacetrain]

Just talking with a friend on the phone, and she said, that the Federal Deficit has basically disappeared .. she was reading something on line, and wanted to know what I thought.. well come to think of it.. I have not heard diddly squat from the tea party lately about deficits.. are they really disappearing again? Did the Democrats actually do it again??. start getting the budget to balance.. Can I get a witness??

[Autumn]

1. The Federal Deficit is irrelevant at this time

the war drums are drowning that out, until it's time to cut program for the poor.

[onecaliberal]

2. SSSHhhhhhhh

The stupid might find out that it's really republicans who are fiscally irresponsible.

[elleng]

3. $506 Billion Is Forecast for U.S. Deficit, a Slight Rise.

The federal government is expected to finish its fiscal year with a relatively modest budget deficit as the gap between revenue and spending continues a sharp decline, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

The improvement in the government’s financial health has shifted political debate in Washington, and arguments on the midterm campaign trail, from the level of federal spending to the uses of that money. It has frustrated economists who argue that the government’s restraint has held back the economic recovery.

The budget office said that it now predicted a federal deficit of $506 billion during the fiscal year that runs through the end of September, modestly increasing its April projection that spending would exceed revenue by $492 billion. The change was attributed to lower-than-expected corporate income tax receipts.

Both figures are significantly lower than the $680 billion deficit during the previous fiscal year. This would also be the fifth consecutive year the deficit has declined as a share of the nation’s gross domestic product, from 9.8 percent in the 2009 fiscal year to a projected 2.9 percent during the current fiscal year. That is below the average deficit of 3.1 percent of economic output over the last four decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/us/politics/budget-office-raises-deficit-estimate-for-fiscal-year-to-506-billion.html

[econoclast]

4. Not hardly

For a number of reasons, the US usually records MONTHLY surplus during the MONTH of September. This year it is forecast to be a surplus of about 50 billion dollars or so. For the YEAR however, as per Whitehouse.gov, they project record setting tax receipts of 2.26 Trillion vs expenditures of 2.93 Trillion .... An annual deficit of 669 Billion. (Which is probably on the high side ... This is one of the projections you'd like to beat on the low side so its usually padded a bit so's its easy to come in under)

Another poster quotes the NYT as saying 500 billion or so. Which is way smaller than the previous Obama annual deficits, but still in the grand scheme of things ... Pretty damn big. For every 3 dollars we spent in 2014, we had to go borrow 50 cents of that money... Even tho we had record breaking tax revenue.