How much attention is the government giving when figuring deficit to the fact that

[StageLeft]

Good point here.

He says that

From January to March last year Treasury took in $540 billion (rounded to the billions.) This period is important because it brackets the 1120 corporate tax return period, and this includes "settlement" of those obligations.

This year the same three months took in $442 billion, a decrease of 18%, and the rate of decline has accelerated precipitously in the last month.

This is based on these government numbers. We all know that the gov has increased spending hugely, but given that not only spending has increased but government income seems sure to decrease substantially, the end result is that the US is on track for more than a $2 trillion deficit this year alone. If it's already at $1T half way in, unless the economy does recover quickly, the jobs numbers and potential significant lack of capital gains taxes for this year really are crazy.

Let's put this another way: US debt as of April 7 of this year was $11.15T. If the government racks up another $2T this year we have:

1776-2008 (222 years): $11 trillion in debt
2008-2009 (1 year): $2 trillion in debt

Damn!

 

[soccerballtux]

Yeah they assume the economic stimulus measures will work immediately; making the deficit look smaller-- in reality the economy contracts, they bring in less tax revenue; deficit is much larger than "expected", all the politicians look at eachother aghast with surprise, dust their hands of it, and introduce a new tax.

I hope Obama doesn't have the balls to do this (the tax way). I'd rather we inflate it away*; but that would be bad for banks (of which the Fed is chief protector of).

*I have a vested interest in this happening, student debt and all.

 

[ProfJohn]

I think we are looking at a $2 trillion deficit this year.

I wouldn't blame Obama for it either.

But I will blame Obama for not taking action to get the budget balanced in the future, and it is clear that he cares nothing about a balanced budget.

 

[JSFLY]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
I think we are looking at a $2 trillion deficit this year.

I wouldn't blame Obama for it either.

But I will blame Obama for not taking action to get the budget balanced in the future, and it is clear that he cares nothing about a balanced budget.

That's not exactly true. Heres a quote from Obama pertaining to the budget deficit from the last primetime press conference he took part in. Basically he's saying we need to spend now with regards to health care and energy to reduce the amount those issues will cost us in the long run. Spend now to reduce the future deficit, that is his goal. Whether this plan will work is debatable, but what isn't debatable is the fact that Obama does care about our budget deficit. He cares nothing about a BALANCED budget because let's face it, it is impossible to balance our budget in our current situation.

Here's the excerpt:
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. At both of your town hall meetings in California last week, you said, quote, I didn't run for president to pass on our problems to the next generation.

But under your budget, the debt will increase $7 trillion over the next 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office says $9.3 trillion. And today on Capitol Hill, some Republicans called your budget, with all the spending on health care, education and environment, the most irresponsible budget in American history.

OBAMA: Yes.

Q: Isn't that kind of debt exactly what you were talking about when you said passing on our problems to the next generation?

OBAMA: First of all, I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them. That would be point number one.

Point number two. Both under our estimates and under the CBO estimates, both ? the most conservative estimates out there, we drive down the deficit over the first five years of our budget. The deficit is cut in half. And folks aren't disputing that.

Where the dispute comes in is what happens in a whole bunch of out-years. And the main difference between the budget that we presented and the budget that came out of the Congressional Budget Office is assumptions about growth.

They're assuming a growth rate of 2.2 percent; we're assuming a growth rate of 2.6 percent. Those small differences end up adding up to a lot of money. Our assumptions are perfectly consistent with what blue chip forecasters out there are saying.

Now, none of us knows exactly what's going to happen 6 or 8 or 10 years from now. Here's what I do know: If we don't tackle energy, if we don't improve our education system, if we don't drive down the costs of health care, if we're not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won't grow 2.6 percent, we won't grow 2.2 percent. We won't grow.

And the reason is because they know that, in fact, the biggest driver of long-term deficits are the huge health care costs that we've got out here that we're going to have to tackle and we ? that if we don't deal with some of the structural problems in our deficit, ones that were here long before I got here, then we're going to continue to see some of the problems in those out-years.

And ? and so what we're trying to emphasize is, let's make sure that we're making the investments that we need to grow to meet those growth targets, at the same time we're still reducing the deficit by a couple of trillion dollars, we are cutting out wasteful spending in areas like Medicare, we're changing procurement practices when it comes to the Pentagon budget, we are looking at social service programs and education programs that don't work and eliminate them.

Source:
http://www.google.com/hostedne...1jPhFS6KsvPegD974ORSO0

 

[Slew Foot]

If you look at the CBO projected deficits, they shrink for about 5 years then start growing exponentially larger again. March's deficit alone was 198 billion, up from a projected 145 billion.

Obama talks the game, but he doesnt play it.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Current deficit projections for this fiscal year anticipate total revenues of less than $2.2bil. For FY09 I think it's $2.35bil in revenues - still almost 10% less than FY08 ...

 

[BrownTown]

I look at this country and sometimes I just can't believe what sort of idiots live here. I mean my parents taught me a simple rule on handling money that has kept me going well so far in life, its pretty simple, you just SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE PERIOD. How is it that 90% of people in this country (including our leaders) were never taught this simple rule? And even worse how come it is the 10% that DO know how to manage money that have to bail out all the retards.

I mean I'm sure we all read the book "Atlas Shrugged", and I always though it was a pretty idiots representation of society, but TBH I would not be suprised if we start seeing it come true. If the hard working people in society just went ahead and said "fuck it". I know I'm getting there, wtf is the point of me working 60 hours a week when all these retards are running our country into the ground anyways. MY parents always taught me hard work was the way to get what you want in life, but lately it looks like laziness and stupidty gets you free government money, and the hard working people just get stuck with the bill. For example, why am I paying for someones mortgage that they couldn't afford when I own no house of my own?