Bush administration needs to work harder to ruin US economy, pundits say.
Oops, wrong headline
How about this from AP -
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Federal Deficit Running Lower This Year
Sep 13 02:16 PM US/Eastern
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal deficit is running sharply lower than last year even though spending in August set an all-time high, the government reported Thursday.
[ Treasury Dept. (Imagine voice of Scotty from Star Trek] :
"We're spending as fast as we can, Capt'n - but the money keeps commin' in !
The Treasury Department said that the deficit through the first 11 months of this budget year totaled $274.4 billion, down 9.8 percent from the same period a year ago.
Analysts believe the deficit for all of 2007 will actually be even lower because they are forecasting a sizable surplus in the final month...
The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting that when this budget year wraps up on Sept. 30, the deficit will total $158 billion, down by 36.2 percent from last year's $248.2 billion deficit.
The government's books have been helped this year by record flows of tax receipts, which have continued even though economic growth has been reduced by a serious slump in housing.
A deficit of $158 billion would be the best showing since the budget was actually in balance for four years. The last surplus was in 2001, President Bush's first year in office.
>> See, Shrub acutually made a difference ;-) <<
While forecasts had projected that government surpluses would total $5.6 trillion over the next decade, the 2001 recession, spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the president's first-term tax cuts all combined to wipe out those surpluses.
[But look how hard the administration had to work to piss away all the money. And now the military couldn't handle another war. ]
Republicans contend that Bush's tax cuts are a major reason that government receipts are so strong now, but Democrats contend that the tax cuts are providing very little economic stimulus and that revenues are simply rebounding to more normal levels after slumping earlier in the decade.
The deficit hit an all-time high in dollar terms in 2004 at $413 billion and has been declining since then. The administration is projecting that the government's books will be in surplus by 2012 if Congress follows Bush's recommendations on spending restraint.
.....
Through the first 11 months of the current budget year, receipts total a record $2.282 trillion, up 7.5 percent from last year, while outlays totaled a record $2.557 trillion, up 5.3 percent from last year.
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And now Larry Kudlow and friends are trying to screw up the US Dollar.
Can they get Uncle Ben to break out the Helicopters ?
Can they get Henry Paulson to panic ?
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This is why I think the long term social security / medicare problem will be manageable, pretty much whoever gets the White House. |
