Four Corners Media: Federal Deficit

Showing posts with label Federal Deficit. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Stop the Red Ink! GOP Alternative

Here is the link to the GOP House members “budget page”, that may help in understanding there are more fiscally responsible ways to look at and manage the Federal budget: http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans

Of note is the projected spending and Federal deficits proposed by the Democrats and President Obama. Simply not sustainable, as US debt has passed 50% GDP.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Federal Deficits Up, State Revenues Down

The U.S. budget deficit for October surged to $176 billion, a record for the month, the Treasury Department announced today.

During the month, the government racked up $311 billion in outlays compared with $135 billion in receipts. (Blogger note: This means the US Gov’t spent 225% of October tax receipts! Clearly a dangerous level of out of control spending.)

The October numbers mark the first month for the new fiscal year after the U.S. wrapped up the 2009 fiscal year that ended on September 30 with a record-high $1.4 trillion budget deficit due to increased government spending to stop the recession and the financial crisis. The final deficit for the 2009 fiscal year was equal to 10 percent of the nation's GDP, the highest shortfall relative to GDP since 1945, the final year of World War II. www.abcnews.com

Meanwhile, according to the Rockefellow Instititute, which has ongoing research on State budgets (by state and region) is reporting record drops in tax revenues, including declines in 49 states. www.rockinst.org

In the RI report of October 15, 2009 (for 2^nd quarter 2009); “Both nominal and inflation adjusted figures indicate that the second quarter of 2009 marked the largest decline in state tax collections at least since 1963. The same is true for combined state and local tax collections, which declined by 12.2 percent in nominal terms.

Second quarter revenues fell by amounts unseen in at least five decades. Total state tax revenue in the second quarter of 2009 declined by 16.6 percent relative to a year ago, before adjustments. The income tax was down by 27.5 percent, the sales tax was down by 9.5 percent, and while the corporate income tax increased by 2.9 percent.

At the same time, in the Rocky Mountain region (Colorado, Idaho, Montana & Utah), personal withholding state tax collections were off 7.3%, while in the Southwest Region (Arizona, NM, Oklahoma) personal withholding declined 10.9%. Estimated state tax payments (2009 vs 2009) for the April to June 2009 period (2nd quarter) were down 44% in Colorado and 44.9% in Arizona. Across the US, state estimated payments (taxes) were down 32.3% (median)” Lucy Dadayan & Don Boyd, www.rockinst.org

States are being forced to cut spending by 5% to 15% (year over year), as they are unable to deficit spend (unlike the undisciplined Federal Government).

According to the recent Rasmussen Reports, the US economy is at the top of the list of Importance of Issues to the American people. Not health care (#3), or the war in Iraq (#8). www.rasmussenreports.com

So what to do next? Work with the US private sector, with the business community and small business to create a better environment for business in the United States. Stop the health care bill, and start over with a bi-partisan approach. Put climate change legislation through an economic impact analysis, before passage of any bill. Cut capital gains taxes for one year (or reduce down to 5% or 10%) and reduce corporate income tax (now the US is the 2^nd highest in the world). Really address unnecessary Federal regulations, mandates and laws that adversely impact small business and tamp down innovation. Finally, the hardest task of all, slash Federal government spending, programs and mandates. Unless the Federal government is put on an austere financial diet, the US risks becoming a third world debtor nation, beholden to Far East (China) and Middle East sovereign wealth funds and unfriendly governments.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Overspending Swells Federal Deficit in April 2009

What does massive government spending by the US government result it? The inability to even show a monthly surplus in April, the historical high point of tax collections during the fiscal year (October through September), reflects the out of control spending by the Federal Government. In fact the US treasury has not shown a negative monthly gap in April (spending vs. taxes collected) since 1983. Thanks to the ongoing economic downturn, combined to massive Federal spending authorized by Congress, first April monthly shortfall in 26 years was experienced in Washington DC. President Obama and the Congress Democrats appear to be determined to spend money US government doesn’t have, to fund programs we don’t need, that will cause increased taxes we don’t want.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States posted its first April deficit in 26 years, a record $20.91 billion shortfall as a deep recession caused revenues to collapse in the year's biggest tax collection month, the U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday.

The deficit, the first for April since a $3.3 billion gap in 1983 as the country emerged from a deep recession, was largely in line with forecasts from Wall Street economists polled by Reuters. It brought the deficit for the first seven months of fiscal 2009 to a record $802.29 billion after a major positive accounting adjustment for the government's bailout investments.

Receipts for April, normally the year's biggest revenue month due to the April 15 deadline for federal income tax filing, fell to $266.23 billion from $403.75 billion in April 2008. Both individual and corporate income tax payments fell sharply from a year earlier. But outlays set another April record, rising to $287.14 billion from $244.47 billion a year earlier. www.reuters.com

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Red Ink Forever

It’s official. The proposed Obama Federal budget will generate red ink and the US Government deficit will increase every year during the new President’s term. In fact the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts US Federal deficits of $1 Trillion per year over the next decade. The complete CBO report is linked here

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/100xx/doc10014/03-20-PresidentBudget.pdf

The national debt is now $11 Trillion and counting. With another decade of spend and tax being proposed by Obama Administration and being supported by the majority Democrats in the Congress, the colossal national debt could double in 10 years to over $20,000,000,000,000! Here is a direct link for more on the deficit:

http://www.federalbudget.com/

According to the CBO, as report by the Associated Press www.ap.org President Barack Obama's budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month. The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget. Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy; figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

The AP also reports that conservative “Blue Dog Democrats” are questioning the larger that life spending proposed by President Obama:

WASHINGTON (www.ap.org ) — “Conservative and moderate Democrats are flexing their muscles on Capitol Hill, demanding significantly lower spending for domestic programs as well as automatic budget cuts if tax cuts and new programs would increase the deficit.

A group of 51 so-called "Blue Dog" House Democrats released their roster of budget demands Thursday, calling for cutting more than $40 billion from domestic programs funded by Congress each year.”

In the Hill on-line version www.thehill.com concerns about the ballooning deficit all even alarming the Democrat majority, “The deficit level, which Obama expected to be 12 percent of gross domestic product this year, would fall to approximately 3 percent of GDP in 2013 and beyond under the president's policies. But the CBO estimated deficits in those years to be much larger, between 4 percent and 6 percent of economic growth. The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) director Orszag said that a deficit that amounted to 5 percent of GDP would be "unsustainable."

The top Republican on the House budget committee Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), said that the new projections show that Obama's budget "will lead our nation into a far worse fiscal catastrophe" than the White House's own numbers suggested.

Janet Hook, in the March 20^th LA Times www.latimes.com reports: “That bad (deficit) news, combined with other recent developments, portends a rocky road for the Obama budget, which was initially hailed by congressional Democrats for promoting such liberal priorities as expanded access to health insurance and curbs on global warming.

In the three weeks since the budget was unveiled, fiscally conservative Democrats have raised concerns about proposed spending increases. Leaders of the House and Senate tax-writing committees have criticized some of Obama's proposed tax increases on wealthier Americans. And influential Democrats are backing away from using a legislative shortcut that may be Obama's best hope for passing his far-reaching health and energy policies.

An additional multibillion-dollar bailout for banks and other financial institutions, which the administration will soon propose, is expected to add more pressure to the federal government's finances. Into that tinderbox, a lit match has come from new deficit estimates. Where Obama's budget foresees rolling up $7 trillion in cumulative deficits over the next 10 years, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) on Thursday pegged the deficits at $1.6 trillion higher over that period.” www.latimes.com

As the FY 2010 budget debate begins on Capitol Hill, the majority Democrats in Congress are faced with the reality that the Obama budget is overspending and over committing the Federal government to programs that cannot be sustained, even if taxes on all of Americans are dramatically raised. And while the President is only beginning his term, a number of US Senators and all the House members face an increasingly skeptical and angry electorate in November 2010. It is becoming increasingly clear that for the majority in Congress to continue to blaming others, each other and past Administrations, will not fly with the US taxpayers. The November 2010 election may be the last chance to vote out the big spenders in Washington. In the meantime, it is clear that the big spender in the White House, who doesn’t stand for election until 2012, won’t use the Obama veto pen on earmarks, pork, overspending or tax increases.

For more details on the US Federal budget, click through to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

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