Great! I suppose Bush is gonna ask for the refund check back now. This from Wallstreet Journal:
July 20, 2001
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Surplus Grew Less Than Expected
In June Amid Corporate-Tax Drop
Dow Jones Newswires
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. ran a budget surplus of $31.86 billion in June, well below expectations, as corporate income-tax receipts fell by more than a quarter.
The federal government's budget surplus for the year so far widened to $168.94 billion in June from $137.1 billion in May, the Treasury Department said Friday. A year earlier, the U.S. had a $176.54 billion surplus.
The June surplus was well below the $38 billion surplus that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill predicted in a television interview early Friday. Economists had been expecting a surplus of $36.5 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Global Markets.
An $11 billion drop in corporate income-tax receipts to just under $30 billion helped push June's surplus well below the $55.6 billion monthly surplus recorded a year earlier.
The Treasury Department said total receipts for June slipped to $202.89 billion from a year-earlier $214.88 billion, while outlays rose to $171.03 billion from $158.99 billion.
Mitch Daniels, director of the government's Office of Management and Budget, said this week that he was sticking to his estimate of a $160 billion to $180 billion budget surplus for the year. The OMB has missed its usual deadline for offering a midseason budget review, but Mr. Daniels said the review should come sometime in August.
The government paid $15.91 billion in net interest last month on the federal debt, down from $17.50 billion in June of last year. Net interest on the federal debt excludes interest paid on nonmarketable government securities held by federal trust funds, such as Social Security. |
