From 4Fig...there are some pretty amazing numbers in here:
U.S. deficit running at triple ’02 pace
Federal deficit was $201.6 billion in first seven months of ’03
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, May 20 — The government ran up a deficit of $201.6 billion in the first seven months of the
2003 budget year, more than three times the total for the corresponding period a year earlier.
THE LATEST FIGURES, released Tuesday by the Treasury Department, underscored the government’s
worsening fiscal situation. Record deficits are forecast this year and next.
The total deficit so far this fiscal year, from October through April, compares with a shortfall of $64.8 billion a
year earlier.
Revenues were down by 5.4 percent to $1.06 trillion for the seven months of the 2003 budget year in comparison
to that period a year earlier. A big part of the drop stemmed from lowered tax payments flowing into the
Treasury, a byproduct of tax cuts and the weak economy.
Individual income tax payments totaled $493.8 billion, representing a decline of almost 8 percent from the
previous year. Corporate tax payments plunged by 28.7 percent to $62.8 billion.
Federal spending for the seven months totaled $1.26 trillion, a 6.5 percent increase from the corresponding
period in fiscal 2002.
The biggest spending categories so far this budget year are: Social Security (the U.S. public pension system),
$291.7 billion; programs of the Health and Human Services Department, including Medicare and Medicaid,
$290.8 billion; military, $216.5 billion; and interest on the public debt, $174.7 billion.
For the 2002 budget year, which ended Sept. 30, the government ran up a deficit of $157.8 billion, ending four
consecutive years of surpluses.
The Congressional Budget Office is predicting this year’s deficit to exceed $300 billion, which would mark an
all-time high. The CBO’s estimate doesn’t take into account a fresh round of tax cuts being worked on by
Congress and advocated by President Bush. |
