Budget deficit set to hit $1 trillion for fifth straight year
Timothy Geithner's signature appears on a freshly printed $20 bill. / Mark Wilson/Getty Images
WASHINGTON The U.S. annual budget deficit is on track to reach $1 trillion for a fifth straight year, though government revenue jumped last month as people paid some taxes early to avoid higher rates in 2013.
The Treasury Department said Friday that the federal deficit grew just $260 million in December. But for the first three months of the budget year, the deficit widened to $292 billion.
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In December, tax revenue rose 12 percent to $270 billion. Spending fell 17 percent to nearly the same amount.
The budget year begins on Oct. 1. The size of the annual deficit will hinge, in part, on how Congress and the White House resolve a debate over raising the nation's borrowing limit. Republicans are demanding deep spending cuts in return for any increase.
The deficit, in simplest terms, is the amount of money the government has to borrow when revenues fall short of expenses. The monthly figures are volatile and can be affected by calendar quirks that shift payments from one month to another.
Much of the December gain in revenue occurred because some companies accelerated bonuses or other payments into 2012 to avoid the possibility of higher taxes in 2013.
And spending fell last month partly because the government provided $14 billion to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in December 2011, after they had lost hundreds of billions from defaulted mortgages in the housing bust. The government didn't make any such payments last month.
The White House and Congress agreed last week to raise taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans this year as part of a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. That deal also allowed a Social Security tax cut to expire. But the groups also postponed for two months the implementation of spending cuts that were included in the cliff.
Those cuts are now scheduled to kick in at around the same time the borrowing limit will be reached. And funding authority for most government programs will expire at the end of March.
The government has run annual deficits for more than a decade, although President Barack Obama's presidency has coincided with four straight $1 trillion-plus deficits.
The deficit reached a record $1.41 trillion in budget year 2009, which began four months before Obama was inaugurated. That deficit was largely because of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Tax revenue plummeted, while the government spent more on stimulus programs.
The budget gaps in 2010 and 2011 were slightly lower than the 2009 deficit as a gradually strengthening economy generated more tax revenue.
President George W. Bush also ran annual deficits through most of his two terms in office after he won approval for broad tax cuts and launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The last time the government ran an annual surplus was in 2001.
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Look at congress' voting record and do the opposite.
Veto or do what it takes. The bought and paid-for congress will continue to line corporate pockets with taxpayers' money.
oh, wait, if Obama went around congress, his detractors would all whine "commie fascist dictator", even though they're whining about his doing nothing, and while ignoring congress decides on the details of the bills that get signed...
And if Obama went around congress, the same anti-Obama people right now would scream their usual cry of "fascist" or whatever, because that is what they have done in the past.
Our present Monetary Policy, as set these days and for the past century by the Federal Reserve System, effectively requires our overall public and private debt to grow on average of about 9% each year.
With that in mind, a "mere" $1 Trillion Federal Deficit is actually an improvement on that (i.e., only about a 6% growth in the National Debt portion of our overall debt, which is a little over four times that), but at what cost?
We are fighting that trend these days by raising taxes while lowering government services at the national, state and local levels, raising health insurance and health care costs while limiting the provision of actual medical services, etc. We can all see this with our own eyes, so it is foolish to blame the guy we just freely elected to a second term to be our President when there is this much more clear and accurate explanation, which allows one to think rather than just get mad, scared or both.
We are not at all powerless, but we have to pay attention and make the right moves, and make them right now!
Show a little respect, and read on for the rest of the story, and a simple yet astonishing idea on how to firmly and effectively clean up this nasty financial mess, and do that while we support our President, rather than upsetting everyone in our space by cantankerously whining, unless you care more about being right in proving your past words, perhaps learned from some TV Show, rather than hoping to fulfill the best interests of all whom you love.
Consider this easy to express idea: End all income, sales, and property taxes and deficit borrowing currently funding all levels of government, and in their place simply retain 70% of the interest paid on loans originated out of "thin air" by Federal Reserve System Shareholder Banks, money that does not even exist until loaned and is backed only by the Trust of our People (i.e., in the most real way possible, it is our own money to start with!), and with the total interest paid on these loans estimated to have been over $6 Trillion during 2012 alone, which is well over our federal budget.
How do you like them apples? Ditch the whole taxation system in one fell swoop, and pay ourselves most of the interest that we ourselves pay for lending ourselves our own money!
That makes a lot of sense to me, how about you?
If you are willing to give this idea a chance, check out the following link for more complete information, and also a link to a White House petition requesting that we do just that!
http://www.causes.com/causes/810177-unite-to-solve-our-financial-and-climate-crises