New CBO estimates for deficit for 2013 at $642 billion

[s0me0nesmind1]

Despite a lot of talk here, I wouldn't expect any sane person to take that bet.

If you gave the taker 10to1 odds it might get a nibble from a degenerate gambler.

It can be pointed out now that CBO estimates are consistently wrong, so much so that they're dangerous.

Why is that? The confidence factor is that we are on a downward trend for deficit. I'm telling you this year is a figure of
A) Tax increase not yet taking hold/notice on the middle class/lower class
B) Previous bailouts FINALLY paying back
C) Temporary Recession of MANDATORY paycuts (leading to leaving) for Public sector. This ends the moment budget talks end and terms come to agreement
D) Higher than expected tax payments

This isn't 10 to 1 odds - it's put your money where your mouth is Obama circle jerkers.

 

[fskimospy]

Really? Want me to pick a number out of my ass to guess how much more the debt will be next year?

If you're game for how correct you are - and enough to give "favorable odds" lets simply go with a bet that next year the deficit 2014 > 2013.

Simple enough. Put your money where your mouth is. I'll hold the bet money for you too 😉

Done!

$500 that the FY 2014 deficit is lower than the 2013 deficit as measured by the OMB. Sound good?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Done!

$500 that the FY 2014 deficit is lower than the 2013 deficit as measured by the OMB. Sound good?

Considering I'm not retarded with money, I can't go $500 I'll go half - $250 if you're serious - seeing as how this is a bet that won't have a winner until December 31 2014.

 

[fskimospy]

Considering I'm not retarded with money, I can't go $500 I'll go half - $250 if you're serious - seeing as how this is a bet that won't have a winner until December 31 2014.

$250 sounds good to me, and btw we would know on about October 1st, 2014 not December 31st. Federal fiscal years go October-October.

I'm willing to put my $250 in an account somewhere or we can rely on the honor system. (although if we rely on the honor system I find it unlikely that you will pay. No slam on you, just a slam on the internet in general)

EDIT: I will totally take this bet with you if you want, but I have to warn you that the odds are pretty strongly in my favor. You're likely throwing money away.

 

[Matt1970]

One of the reasons for the burst of additional income tax revenues, the budget office says, is that upper-income taxpayers claimed more income late last year in order to avoid paying the higher tax rates enacted in January.

If people rushed to show income for the end of 2012 that would typically mean they will have less income to show for the next year or few years. The CBO numbers factoring that in?

 

[zephyrprime]

Lest you forget, the sequestration did not actually cut any spending. It simply reduced the planned increase by a tiny fraction.

So really, the reason the deficit is declining is because of increased revenues.

 

[werepossum]

http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-estimates-2013-deficit-642-billion-183237489.html

I know there will be people in here that take a giant crap all over that number but you would need to be blind to not see that the number is moving "significantly" in the right direction.

:thumbsup:



Either things are improving rapidly or the CBN data wasn't very good in February. Of course, the sequestration might have a small part to do with those Feb. numbers if they were not figured in the first time. This is essentially half (or less) of where it was just a few years ago. Hoping it can continue.

Of course, as soon as the Congress people see this, they will start to resume spending (both sides - don't kid yourself) in a bigger way....you can bank on that.

I agree completely with your first point. And unfortunately, with your second point as well. The only restraint we've seen in my lifetime is that sometimes (okay, once) a Republican Congress is willing to exercise restraint as long as there is a Democrat President. I'm not absolutely sure if it was having a Republican President or simply that having spent almost a decade in D.C. those same Republicans had firmly become big-government progressives, but we can all agree that once the Pubbies controlled all three bodies involved, limiting spending was quite literally the last thing on their minds.

EDIT: I also think that, having lost so much of our manufacturing base, this is about as good as it could be. But slow recovery is still better than no recovery.

 

[Atreus21]

As someone who knows comparatively little about government budgets, I have the following questions:

Why does the CBO offer these "projections"? Why are they always so subject to change? Speaking as a layman, when I make a budget, I compare income versus expenditures, and determine surplus or deficit by that comparison.

Why are government budgets not similar to this, and therefore easier to predict with respect to producing a deficit or surplus?

 

[fskimospy]

As someone who knows comparatively little about government budgets, I have the following questions:

Why does the CBO offer these "projections"? Why are they always so subject to change? Speaking as a layman, when I make a budget, I compare income versus expenditures, and determine surplus or deficit by that comparison.

Why are government budgets not similar to this, and therefore easier to predict with respect to producing a deficit or surplus?

Well they are estimating income and expenditures. If you have a salary job you know exactly what you'll make six months from now, but say you own a business. How many customers will you have in November? You can make an educated guess, but that's it.

 

[Darwin333]

I'm really not sure why people are looking at decreasing deficits as a good thing. Haven't we learned anything from this economic crisis? I mean all things being equal a lower deficit is good, but we appear to have sacrificed significant economic growth to lower it, something that is counterproductive in our current situation.

There is no "appear" to it. Every single dollar the government deficit spends adds to GDP in the here and now so spending less must have an impact on GDP/economy. Thats just basic math. The real question is can the economy sustain itself without .gov deficit spending and the answer to that is no and it won't be able to for as long as even the pie in the sky forecasts predict.

Basically the .gov deficit spending quite literally has been all of our GDP "increase" and more and it will continue to be at least a huge portion for the foreseeable future.

I haven't had a chance to drill into the numbers yet, this is a rather drastic reduction and I seriously doubt that actual "cuts" of this level were made. If I had to guess I would bet it is due to the bullshit way that the CBO is forced to make projections but thats just a guess.

 

[Darwin333]

Is this the same incompetent CBO that scored O'Bammacare? Why should you believe anything they say??? They should all be fired for incompetence!

Despite a lot of talk here, I wouldn't expect any sane person to take that bet.

If you gave the taker 10to1 odds it might get a nibble from a degenerate gambler.

It can be pointed out now that CBO estimates are consistently wrong, so much so that they're dangerous.

The CBO is wrong so often due to the rules that Congress forces them to abide by when doing their forecasts. This is very intentional.

 

[Darwin333]

As someone who knows comparatively little about government budgets, I have the following questions:

Why does the CBO offer these "projections"? Why are they always so subject to change? Speaking as a layman, when I make a budget, I compare income versus expenditures, and determine surplus or deficit by that comparison.

Why are government budgets not similar to this, and therefore easier to predict with respect to producing a deficit or surplus?

Because the CBO is required by law to base their forecasts off of "existing law". Sounds like a pretty damn good idea, right? Well, not always and especially not recently. Last year existing law stated that ALL of the Bush tax cuts would expire so they were forced to use that in their projections. Now anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew that Congress wasn't going to allow the vast majority of those tax cuts to expire but that didn't matter. Furthermore, any law passed after the projections wouldn't have been included unless they did a projection to see what that specific law would cost/gain.

There is no "common sense" projection that makes very reasonable assumptions, such as Congress extending most of the Bush tax cuts, in order to give us the most accurate projection possible.

 

[Darwin333]

$250 sounds good to me, and btw we would know on about October 1st, 2014 not December 31st. Federal fiscal years go October-October.

I'm willing to put my $250 in an account somewhere or we can rely on the honor system. (although if we rely on the honor system I find it unlikely that you will pay. No slam on you, just a slam on the internet in general)

EDIT: I will totally take this bet with you if you want, but I have to warn you that the odds are pretty strongly in my favor. You're likely throwing money away.

Why not use the treasury's actual real to the dollar debt numbers? Just a suggestion but I like to use it as a measure of debt increase because there is absolutely no wiggle room or game playing.

Here is the starting point for the end of FY2012: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/debta2012q3.html

 

[Attic]

The CBO is wrong so often due to the rules that Congress forces them to abide by when doing their forecasts. This is very intentional.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/12/01/21-40Kliesen.pdf

This article touches on some of those rules. It notes that CBO estimated we would be at zero debt levels by 2010 using thse rules.

The current estimate of a 642B deficit for 2013 is based on same rules. As Eskimo notes, we'll find out the true number in October.