Budget Deficit Drops to $250 Billion

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2006/oct/06/100603005.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal budget deficit estimate for the fiscal year just completed has dropped to $250 billion, congressional estimators said Friday, as the economy continued to fuel impressive tax revenues.

The Congressional Budget Office's latest estimate is $10 billion below CBO predictions issued in August and well below a July White House prediction of $296 billion.

The improving deficit picture - Bush predicted a $423 billion deficit in his February budget - has been driven by better-than-expected tax receipts, especially from corporate profits, CBO said.

The 2005 deficit registered $318 billion; the record $413 billion deficit was posted in 2004.

<more>

[central scrutinizer]

1. that old low expectations thing again

Buscho has so badly fucked things up that a quarter of a trillion dollar deficit is considered a good thing.

[brentspeak]

2. So now our nation is in the red "only" by $250 billion thanks to

Bush's gross financial mismanagement. Assuming these numbers are not cooked, Bush still has $250+ billion to go to bring the nation's balance sheet back to where it was before he entered office.

[shain from kane]

4. Are costs of waging 2 wars and reconstruction included? Aren't

those costs segregated from the budget? What was the social security surplus?

[AllegroRondo]

8. I believe you are correct

but whats a couple hundred billion extra?

[wholetruth00]

19. And this is most likely anothre lie. It's almost impossible from where we

were.

[bif]

3. Let's have a fucking party!

We can use the $20 million earmarked for the huge Iraq celebration that'll never happen.

[underpants]

5. They are taking credit for being wrong again

I mean AGAIN. They were a 1/4 TRILLION DOLLARS off and they are acting like that is a good thing.

All politics all the time there is no there there there is no policy there is only the empty spectacle.

[madrchsod]

6. enron book keeping

the debt is at least double that amount

[dkofos]

7. So we should be impressed??

I would be impressed with a $250 billion surplus.

Must be because of 9/11

[Nickster]

9. But surprisingly, the total debt number just keeps rising. Gee, wonder how

that happens.

[54anickel]

11. 2 sets of books OMB cash accounting vs Treasury accrual accounting

When they want to scare the jeebies outta everyone regarding "entitlements" they use the cooked Treasury numbers.
When Dimson wants to "look good" they use the cooked OMB numbers.

snip>

The world is littered with statistics which, more often than not, are misleading and distort the truth. In this regard, the "official" statistics released by the US establishment are no different. Take the US budget for example. The budget reported in the media claims that the deficit was reduced to $319 billion in 2005. However, the Financial Report issued by the Department of Treasury says it was $760 billion, or over twice as large. "But how come?" you may wonder. It is fascinating to note that the US budget process meant for general reporting uses accounting procedures that ignore long-term, future obligations such as Social Security and Medicare. The US keeps two sets of books, only wanting the world to see one of them. The "President's Budget," issued by the Office of Management and Budget and used to develop the annual budget, is based on cash-accounting. The other set of accounts, the "Financial Report of the United States," issued by the Department of the Treasury, uses a more realistic accrual-basis accounting. It is interesting to note that the US Federal law requires ALL businesses with revenues in excess of $5 million to use accrual accounting, yet the budget figures released to the public don't follow this rule. Take a look at Figure 2, which summarises the Financial Report issued by the US Treasury taking into account the future obligations of the federal government. According to this report, the US budget deficit is now at a record-high!


Figure 2: The real US budget-deficit!





(From a gold-bug article http://www.321gold.com/editorials/saxena/saxena092906.html

[Nickster]

14. Yeah, I know. I'm an accountant.:-)

[54anickel]

30. I used to be a bean counter - that was many years ago though. I've

forgotten most of the more intricate details now. I got lured into the computer field from there. I believe it was Lotus 1-2-3 that finally tempted me away.
I should try to get back into it, maybe I'd have better luck in the employment area. It's become such an "art form" these days. ;-) Actually, now that I think about it, it was already an "art form" back then - at least it was for the owner of my last accounting gig. Obviously, the man was ahead of his time. :evilgrin:

[Nickster]

32. Funny, I went the other way. IT to bean counter. I'm still new to the game

and the most depressing part of it is how your forced to be an "artist".

[54anickel]

33. Heh-heh, It does bring a whole new meaning to the old...

"Paint by Numbers" sets.

Damn, that would have been a sweet parting gift to give that old boss of mine!

[melm00se]

10. i'd be excited

if it weren't $250B in the red for this year alone...

[Mojorabbit]

12. An article from today

from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14756403/site/newsweek

Here's the deal. The stated deficit is the difference between the cash that the government takes in and the cash it spends. That's $260 billion—the number most analysts use to measure the deficit. But Uncle Sam will also borrow almost $300 billion from federal trust funds: $177 billion from Social Security, and an additional $121 billion from "other government accounts" such as federal-employee pension funds. Some $78 billion of this total comes from the Treasury's taking Social Security's cash surplus this year and spending it. Most of the rest comes from the government's paying what it owes the trust funds—primarily for interest on their $3.6 trillion of Treasury securities—with I.O.U.s, not cash. (All my numbers, by the way, are based on public budget documents.)

[niceypoo]

13. Oh? For the quarter?

Add in Iraq, the SS surplus, the postal surplus that they are robbing to hide the true numbers and that number more than doubles!!

[sofa king]

15. Is the national debt up to $8 trillion yet?

I know it's $7 trillion and change right now, and that's not including the $2 trillion Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz have stolen from the DoD and funneled to themselves through the World Bank.

[krispos42]

27. $8,547,831,901,583.14

Sad, isn't it?

[allisonthegreat]

16. Numbers have got to be padded. n/t

[pinniped]

17. Estimate higher and you can run a good news story like this every....

year.

[xchrom]

18. in what universe is -$250 billion a good thing?

i guess they'd know at FreeStupidVille.

[cosmicdot]

20. have they resumed making Medicare payments?

now, that it's October and a new fiscal year?

(surely, Halliburton's invoices got paid)


U.S. to Delay Medicare Provider Payments

By KEVIN FREKING
The Associated Press

Thursday, August 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Many health care providers will have to make do next
month without a government paycheck or two. The Bush administration
says it will not make any Medicare reimbursements to hospitals,
doctors and scores of other providers during the last nine days of the
current budget year, from Sept. 22-30. Congress ordered the hold.

~snip~

By delaying payments, the government moves $5.2 billion in Medicare
expenses to next year's budget, rather than the current one.

~snip~

http://www.gatago.com/alt/social-security-disability/27461112.html


of course, they, also, plan to further reduce payment amounts for services further in the new fiscal year (increasing out of pocket expenses of Medicare citizens) ... maybe that'll help their budget games ... guess Scott McClellan's brother Mark is leaving Medicare, now, that he's done some damage


AMA Seeks Delay in Medicare Payment Cuts

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay ReporterThu Sep 7, 11:48 PM ET

THURSDAY, Sept. 7 (HealthDay News) -- If proposed cuts in Medicare payments to physicians take effect early next year as planned, many U.S. doctors would be forced to limit the number of older Americans they can see as patients, the American Medical Association said Thursday.

~snip~

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060908/hl_hsn/amaseeksdelayinmedicarepaymentcuts&printer=1

[Roland99]

21. $250 billion?? Bull-Fucking-Shit!!!

[bhikkhu]

22. The book-cookers working overtime this month

Employment figures revised and back-dated, oil production figures revised and back-dated...Orwell would be proud.

[Zorra]

23. ***(Bu*h Crime Family statistics). n/t

[lpbk2713]

24. A billion here, a billion there ....

.... sooner or later you're talking about real money.


:eyes: :eyes:

[struggle4progress]

25. O, how exciting! The federal budget deficit estimate dropped!

It's a bargain! At this rate, we just can't afford not to cut taxes again and start a war with Iran!

I wonder if Bush can get the federal debt up to 75% of GDP by the time he leaves office?

[krispos42]

26. Red-Ink Republicans strike again

Of course, this does not include 90 billon or so for "emergency funding" for those occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, man, those occupations just come out of NOWHERE! Like those trees that just LEAP out into roadways for inattentive drivers on cell phones to slam into.

[Dem2theMax]

28. Oh goody. Now I can sleep at night.

That idiot will have it back up to, and beyond, $413 billion before you can say "war in Iran."

[kentuck]

29. Look Mom! I got a medal at the Special Olympics!

I ran the 100 yard dash in 22 seconds!

[indypaul]

31. Could this be a result of

IRS collecting from all the phony tax-shelters that had no
economic purpose?

[ticktockman]

34. The True Deficit is $574 Billion

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal budget deficit estimate for the fiscal year just completed has dropped to $250 billion, congressional estimators said Friday, as the economy continued to fuel impressive tax revenues.

The trouble is, the reported deficit totally ignores the hundreds of billions of dollars that we're borrowing from Social Security and other trust funds. The following table shows the federal debt over the past decade as given by the Treasury Department:

           TOTAL FEDERAL DEBT (billions of dollars)

                                 Intra-
  Fiscal   Debt Held              Gov't              Total
 Year End  by Public   Change  Holdings   Change      Debt   Change
---------- --------- -------- --------- -------- --------- --------
 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

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt,
        online at http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

As can be seen in the last column, the total debt increased $574 billion in the fiscal year that just ended, over $20 billion MORE than it increased during the prior fiscal year. According to the third column, the debt borrowed from the public did increase $242 billion, $52 billion less than last year. However, the government borrowed over $72 billion more from Social Security and other trust funds, increasing the total borrowing by over $20 billion. Hence, the true deficit problem is not getting better and is currently caused by the general fund, not by entitlements.

[Solly Mack]

36. Great info!

I linked to this post - giving you full credit - and added it to some info I had gathered and posted in GD.

[Solly Mack]

35. A Record of "Fuzzy Math" by the Bush Administration

Bush Team's Fuzzy Math

"In his State of the Union address, the president pledged to halve the deficit by 2009. But his plan largely excludes the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and does not reflect the long-term impact of Mr. Bush's proposal to make recent tax cuts permanent."


Halving the Deficit Will Involve Major Changes—or ‘Fuzzy Math’

Published: 01/10/2005


"These cuts will do little to alleviate the budget deficit. It is convenient for this administration to have such a large budget deficit so it can further its political priorities of shrinking the size and role of the federal government in the name of fiscal discipline. But the cuts the president will make in non-defense discretionary programs in his FY 2006 budget will do little to ease the budget deficit compared to rolling back some or all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

The administration will certainly continue to use a “reducing the deficit” rationale to justify imposing entitlement caps in the FY 2006 budget. Entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are funded by formulas set in law and not subject to the annual appropriations process. But by including entitlement caps in the budget, the Bush administration will further erode an important aspect of the social safety net just so they can avoid rolling back tax cuts for the super wealthy.

It has recently emerged the administration has another way of battling the budget deficit besides excessively cutting funding for programs and agencies. News sources, including the New York Times, reported the administration plans to both use the numbers to their advantage and omit the costs of certain major initiatives and policies.

The Times reported on Jan. 2 that administration officials have “decided to measure their progress against a $521 billion deficit they predicted last February rather than last year’s actual shortfall of $413 billion.” This means that they are going to use an inflated baseline in pursuing their goal of cutting the deficit in half. Last February, administration officials predicted a federal deficit of $521 billion. After the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the Treasury Department reported that the 2004 budget deficit stood at $413 billion – $108 billion less than their earlier predicted deficit."



The Administration’s “Good News” Claim Is Based on Gamesmanship about Expectations

"The Administration claims that a $413 billion deficit reflects an “improvement in the nation’s budget picture.”<2> Such a claim is misleading at best. The Administration’s claim comes about only because the deficit did not increase as much in 2004 as the Administration earlier predicted it would. This is like a football coach predicting his team will go from a record of 6 wins and 10 losses to a 4-12 record the next year, and then celebrating when the team “improves” to 5-11."

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10610F83E5D0C718CDDA80894DD404482(have to pay for the article)

" To show that President Bush can fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by 2009, White House officials are preparing a budget that will assume a significant jump in revenues and omit the cost of major initiatives like overhauling Social Security. To make Mr. Bush's goal ..."

[pampango]

37. Revenues rising, even after tax cuts?

I have read that the massive deficit is due to our of control spending by our "frugal" administration and congress, but that tax revenues are actually higher now than they were 5 years ago.

Can anyone that knows more about the federal budget comment on that. Is that analysis just spin? Is it possible for tax revenues to increase in spite of a tax rate reduction? (Obviously, the fairness of the tax reduction structure is a question, but a separate one.)

[ticktockman]

39. Revenues suffer a one-time drop after tax cuts

I have read that the massive deficit is due to our of control spending by our "frugal" administration and congress, but that tax revenues are actually higher now than they were 5 years ago.

Can anyone that knows more about the federal budget comment on that. Is that analysis just spin? Is it possible for tax revenues to increase in spite of a tax rate reduction? (Obviously, the fairness of the tax reduction structure is a question, but a separate one.)

Tax revenues are higher now than they were 5 years ago but the analysis that this proves that the problem is spending, not tax cuts, is deeply flawed. First of all, pretty much all of the increase is due to inflation. The following graph shows revenues, outlays, and deficits since 1981 in real (inflation-corrected) dollars:



The actual numbers and sources are at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/mts.html . As can be seen, revenues are only back to about where they were in 2000, corrected for inflation. However, also note that revenues have been growing faster than inflation since 1983. The second graph at http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/recsrc.html shows that they've been following this general trend since at least 1940. In fact, the first graph at that URL shows that revenues as a percentage of GDP have been relatively stable. That is, revenues tend to grow as fast as the GDP. This makes sense since both GDP and revenue growth are related to growth in wages and population. Since wages tend to grow faster than inflation (at least, until recently) and the population tends to grow, GDP and revenues tend to grow faster than inflation. Hence, a tax cut will tend to cause a one-time drop in revenues. After that, revenues will tend to continue growing with the GDP, as before.

[Buchananfan]

38. Does this include the NATIONAL DEBT?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/