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Thursday, August 10, 2006

Deficit Running 21% Down!

The Star

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal deficit through July is running well below last year's pace, helped by strong growth in revenues, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.

Through the first 10 months of this budget year, the deficit totaled $239.7 billion (euro186.44 billion), an improvement of 20.8 percent from the same period a year ago, when it was $302.8 billion (euro235.51 billion).

The deficit in July totaled $33.2 billion (euro25.82 billion), down sharply from an imbalance of $53.4 billion (euro41.53 billion) in July 2005.

The narrowing of the deficit this year reflects a surge in government revenues from higher corporate and individual tax receipts.

The administration is now forecasting that the deficit for the 2006 budget year, which ends on Sept. 30, will total $296 billion (euro230.22 billion), a marked improvement from the $423 billion (euro329 billion) deficit the administration was forecasting back in February.

The Congressional Budget Office is even more optimistic, forecasting the deficit for this year will fall to $260 billion.


The debt should be calculated as a percentage of GDP. By that measure the current deficit isn't that bad and much better than a couple years ago.

The reason why we have a deficit is that Congress has spent too much. While I'm not happy with the Republicans, the Democrats would be spending that much worse.

Comments

The real reason we have deficits is that we don’t require our political class to be fiscally responsible.  Every day, Congress does fiscally irresponsible things that would cause the head of any business to get thrown in prison if discovered.  When you don’t penalize wrong behavior, you get more of it.


The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

robert108 on August 10, 2006 at 07:06 pm
Avatar for The Whistler

In fact the electorate seems to rewarding the irresponsible.

The Whistler on August 10, 2006 at 07:13 pm

Vote-buying.  A lot of people think they should get something for nothing, and the political class isn’t real anxious to tell them any different.


The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

robert108 on August 10, 2006 at 07:19 pm
Avatar for FreeRepublicans.com

Down 21% = Good

$296 billion in the hole = Bad

Fair and Balanced.

FreeRepublicans.com on August 10, 2006 at 08:17 pm
Avatar for WOOF

December 28, 2000

Today, President Clinton will announce that The

United States is on course to eliminate its public debt within the next decade

. The Administration also announced that we are projected to pay down $237 billion in debt in 2001
WOOF on August 10, 2006 at 08:37 pm

Of course, Clinton was lying, as usual.  Part of the “paydown”, of course, was the “massive contribution” of Enron.  Never forget; Enron “prospered” under Clinton, went broke under Bush.


The only legitimate role of government with regard to economics is to prevent fraud and provide a remedy- civil and criminal penalties- in case of fraud.

People have the mistaken notion that the free market has no rules.  But it most certainly does.  All our problems are due to government meddling.

robert108 on August 10, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Avatar for bullwinkle

There’s that lie again. WOOF just can’t help himself, he’s a pathological liar. Repeat after me WOOF, “presidents don’t raise or lower spending or even set it, they propose it and congress does whatever they feel like doing”. Clinton had nothing to do with it other than signing the bills a REPUBLICAN congress sent to him. You know this is an inarguable fact but since you’re a liberal little Marxist lying puke and a sorry excuse for a human being so you must lie about it.  We all know that at the time you were crying like the whiny little bitch that you are about the Republicans were cruel and greedy and you hated the deficit being paid down and the debt being reduced at the expense of your parasitic life.

bullwinkle on August 11, 2006 at 01:47 am
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