I thought tax cuts for corporations paid for themselves. I thought tariffs reduced trade deficits. All hail Trump on another record. Think about this for a moment. We surpassed Obama deficits during the financial crisis and we are supposedly experiencing the best economy evah – according to Trump. I believe the facts, not the narrative. Oh, you say deficits don’t matter. We shall see.
U.S. Posts Largest-Ever Monthly Budget Deficit in February
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Shortfall rises 40% to $544b in first 5 months of fiscal year
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Corporate, income taxes decline as tariff revenue climbs
The U.S. posted its biggest monthly budget deficit on record last month, amid a 20 percent drop in corporate tax revenue and a boost in spending so far this fiscal year.
The budget gap widened to $234 billion in February, compared with a fiscal gap of $215.2 billion a year earlier. That gap surpassed the previous monthly record of $231.7 billion set seven years ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
February’s shortfall helped push the deficit for the first five months of the government’s fiscal year to $544.2 billion, up almost 40 percent from the same period the previous year, the Treasury Department said in its monthly budget report Friday. The release was delayed a week by the government shutdown earlier this year.
Receipts dipped less than 1 percent to $1.3 trillion in the October-February period from the previous year, while spending accelerated 9 percent to $1.8 trillion.
The fiscal shortfall is widening following President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax-cuts package that’s weighing on receipts and raising concerns about the national debt load, which topped a record $22 trillion last month.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell reiterated his concern over the government deficit in a press conference Wednesday, saying that the nation’s growing debt pile needs to be addressed. At the same time, there’s a shift among some economists — led by proponents of Modern Monetary Theory — on the dangers of a growing deficit, with low inflation and cheap borrowing costs suggesting there’s room for additional spending.
The budget deficit as a share of gross domestic product is expected to widen to 5.1 percent this year, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, according to projections from the White House Office of Management and Budget. The shortfall is expected to be 4.9 percent of GDP in 2020, and further narrow every year through 2024, according to the estimates.
The Treasury data show tax receipts declined for both corporations and individuals in the five-month period, while revenue from customs duties almost doubled, boosted by income from tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
The 2017 tax law slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.
Corporations have so far this fiscal year paid $59.2 billion, compared to $73.5 billion at the point in 2018, when the tax law was only partially in effect for some corporations. In 2017, however, the year before the law was enacted, corporations had paid $87.4 billion at this point in the year.
In a briefing with reporters on Friday before Treasury released the budget data, officials attributed the drop in corporate tax revenues to the front-loading of accelerated expensing and other such items, and reiterated the administration’s view that the cuts would pay off with faster economic growth.
The officials said the administration has been clear the tax cuts would pay for themselves over time, not immediately.
Individual income tax receipts dropped slightly from this point last year, but have risen compared to some years before the tax law. Despite the law cutting tax rates for most people, rising wages and lower unemployment have spurred higher tax revenue.
“It’s not an accident that this economy is doing so well, it comes in no small part from business tax” reductions, economist Stephen Moore, Trump’s pick to be a Fed governor, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Friday. “We’ve just got to get the spending” under control but no party is in the mood for that, he added.
Trump’s 2020 election bid is beginning to ramp up and he’s eager to show that his three-pronged economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and new trade deals have spurred growth. However, key indicators, such as business investment in equipment and machinery, haven’t expanded greatly despite tax policies prodding companies to spend more. The Federal Reserve this week acknowledged that interest rates could be on hold for “some time” a sign the central bank is cautious about economic growth potential.
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No Trumpeteers stepping up to spin this as huge positive development?
Trust the plan.
Pray.
Why do you hate freedom? Freedom to spend to oblivion?
Sarcasm.
Admin, stop being so obtuse. You … yeah, YOU … have debts!! In fact, EVERY person here on TBP has some kind of monetary debt — from long term (mortgage) to short term (monthly utility bills).
One can you gain from this extraordinary bit of wisdom?
— First, debt is NECESSARY.
——- And if something is necessary, then more of that something is better. In other words, more debt is great.
— Second, the key question is not debt but the ABILITY to repay that debt. That’s why your debt is good … because you can repay it (not that you will). Brilliant, no?
[Side Note: I hope you appreciate my use of caps, parenthesis, ellipses, dots, italics, and bold. It’s a lot of work.)
Now, I know full well what your (mistaken) response will be; “AMURIKA’S DEBT IS SO LARGE IT CAN’T BE REPAID!!”
Bullshit!! Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. It’s about to become ours .. and, rightfully so. Afghanistan has trillions of dollars in mineral reserves. All Afghanistan are ours. Mexico has millions of Beaners to provide cheap labor. And there are other countries we can still take over easily.
So, please, wake the fuck up and smell the roses, and stop spreading doom!!!
=============================== =
Now that I’m done edumacating your sorry ass I’m off to do something really really important …….. watch basketball games.
Really. IU is on ESPN right now. The NIT. YEAH, BAAAABY!!! Then there’s all the other games. See y’all tomorrow.
Hey, I gave it my best shot.
Thanks for the words of wisdom Stuck. Your logic is irrefutable and your use of caps, parenthesis, ellipses, dots, italics and bold is beyond brilliant. When you and Dick Cheney both tell me debt doesn’t matter, who am I to argue. You’ve convinced me to borrow against my house and buy into the Lyft IPO, rather than pay down my mortgage. I’m going to stop trying to swim upstream and just go with the flow. I’ll probably turn TBP into a fashion blog based on whatever the Kardashians are doing that week.
So you and three other people in the country will be watching the IU game on ESPN.
Great, the world is going into the shitter and Admin decides to rearrange the deck chairs by turning the blog into Hello! TV.
Can you at least post good pics of Kylie Jenner’s tits every fiscal quarter henceforth? That’ll make the deficits more palatable.
I promise to do so on a weekly basis.
Proof the Creator knew what He was doing. IMHO.
Proof her plastic surgeon deserved the $100k she paid him.
hahaha
The two best investments that can be made:
-politicians
-tiddies
Thank you for not posting Bruce Jenner’s ….
You’re welcome
Kinda looks like Yokes
LMFAO!!!
I have no debts. I pay everything in advance these days. Even credit cards. I pay utilities, taxes, etc. in advance. That way I only have to do payments once evrey several months. The interest lost is minimal these days, so what the fuck. It saves me a lot of time and effort, and costs me maybe $100 a year in lost interest. It is one of the best decisions I ever made. The best thing about money is that it can be used to buy time.
“The interest lost is minimal these days”
The interest lost is less than what would be lost to inflation. You “lose” nothing by doing what you’re doing. It is the only sensible way to proceed.
You don’t “lose” $100 per year in interest. What you do is avoid losing the difference between 2% interest and 6% inflation. In other words, you SAVE $200 per year ($300 lost to inflation, minus $100 recouped in interest).
It is an axiom that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. When (real) inflation outstrips any interest rate you can find while still having some degree of liquidity; then a dollar today is worth A LOT more than a dollar tomorrow.
Saving is impossible. Interest merely mitigates loss to inflation (as compared to keeping cash under one’s mattress). Under recent and current conditions, “saving” IS debt. The only thing to do is spend … but spend wisely.
Spend wisely on what?
Houses and the stock market. Bwahahababa. At least in the DC area anyway.
I still say entrepreneurial endeavors or a bugout location.
I’m pretty sure you didn’t see 2008/2009 coming either. Did DC sail through unscathed?
Your narrative about booming house prices doesn’t match the facts big guy. They are still 10% below previous peak. Keep on believing.
I was being little sarcastic but, I really do think it’s different here in DC. OF COURSE I could be wrong but the difference this time is no housing is being built. Virtually none compared to 08/09.
If there was demand, they would build.
You seem to want Trump to fall on his sword in a futile effort to cut deficits….Face reality, Mr. Admin, the country will keep spending until it defaults.
Cut deficits!!!!!
He fucking exploded the deficits.
So you will go along with whatever Orangeman does because to oppose stupidity is futile and you want the country to collapse under the mountain of debt????
Why the fuck did I start this fucking blog if it doesn’t fucking matter anyway.
WTF is wrong with you numbskulls.
Now don’t tear me a new one …. the problem is you are an optimist. You desire to see the country improve. I can’t fault you but …not going to happen. It’s into the crapper for everyone. As B.B. would say .. it’s all pre-ordained.
Wrong, I don’t like a lot of things he has not done, and some that he has….But you aren’t facing reality, which is that the President hasn’t been able to do anything significant about spending since the abominable SCOTUS decision that outlawed Nixon’s rescissions of spending programs..and if he did do something significant, he’d be crucified by the press and public…No one important complained about Obama or Bush’s spending, which was worse because it came from wars..
Actually, he didn’t explode defecits. Defecits as a % of GDP are now about what they were pre-2008. Defecits exploded in the years following 2008 and then slowly declined until 2017, when defecit/GDP was actually low. Trump’s $1+ Trillion defecit is about average for the last quarter century.
Of course, those “average” defecits were (and are) a hugely bad idea; so, I’m not defending this past year’s defecit spending, just putting it in longer-term perspective.
At current interest rates, “average” U.S. defecit spending could go on uninterrupted for another 50 years or more, provided that GDP grows as fast or faster than interest on the debt.
If rates go up, or GDP slumps, that 50+ year cushion shrinks. If rates go up AND the economy slows or shrinks for a number of years, then the interest on our debt starts eating into GDP at an exponentially increasing rate (think of making $40 k/yr and having $800,000 in debt) . The dollar collapses entirely and will ultimately be replaced. I expect this to happen in the next 10 years … but I’m a pessimist.
A lot of ifs. The economy is in recession today and going lower. The $1 trillion deficits will now swell to $2 trillion as GDP sinks and interest on the debt relentlessly increases. It will surely end well.
The plan, Mr. Quinn, is to gun the engines and shoot for the runway.
Pray indeed,probably our only legitimate hope.
the plan is there is no plan,or maybe the hope is there is no plan, or maybe the plan is there is no hope!
Who cares about mere BILLIONS … that’s so 2000’ish.
A trillion here, a trillion there….pretty soon you’re talking about real money
Won’t be too long before a new word comes into everyday use: quadrillion.
Deficits = Congress
Tariffs = Treasury
Trade Imbalances = Currency Valuations (biggest component)+ Trade in Goods/Services (lesser component)
So your beloved Trump had nothing to do with the tax cuts for corporations and the massive increase in military spending? I love to witness the cognitive dissonance of Trumpeteers. Trump didn’t push for the tariffs? Your comprehension of trade imbalances is brilliant. Yikes.
1. Trump is not my ‘beloved’
2. Conflating tariffs, trade imbalances, & tax receipts is just dumb
3. Shall we have a discussion about how lower corporate taxes cause corporations to relocate/re-shore to the US which means more jobs which will increase tax revenues (property, income, & corporate) Just because a tax cut doesn’t fulfill your expectations right. this. minute. does not mean it is wrong
4. Bloomberg… Really?
Tariffs and Trump bloviating for two years have led to the largest trade deficits in the history of the country. Please regale us with your wisdom about trade. We await with baited breath.
Shall we have a discussion about how the mega-corps used their massive tax cuts to buy back their fucking stock. They did not re-shore jack shit. We continue to add the same shit paying jobs we did under Obama. Trump’s jobs narrative is complete bullshit.
The gullibility of you people believing the tax cuts have spurred anything but the stock market is a wonder to behold. Any day now the tax cuts will lead to lower deficits as we have entered recession.
People like you, who have jack shit facts to back up your bullshit, attack the source of the story. Please tell me what facts in the story are incorrect.
You are a Trumpeteer with nothing but false narratives.
The stupid, it burns.
Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
OMG, does this mean his feud with Vince McMahon was all kayfabe?
You do know that is bullshit, right? If Amazon had taxable income, it would have been taxed, unless it had losses to carry forward.
You of all people know that financial statement profit, esp. for a world-wide corp, has zero to do with tax return profit. And that that little snippet ignores carry forward of losses, capital expenditures, etc.
I’m a Trumpster. The good news here is when a muppet from the
Uni Party once more occupies the White House, all this will be
undone very quickly. No Federal judges getting in the way, no
endless fake investigations. Just cocktail bliss on Capitol Hill
with high dollar hookers and nose candy as ususal. We can get
back to being the world cop-thug spreading democracy as we
grab resources. Might as well pick up all the NATO tabs too.
No more worry about building a wall on the border. Let everyone
and their pet poodle in to vote Democrat and give them our goodies.
I think the Admin needs to kick back and self medicate this weekend.
I love when Trumpeteers get their panties in a twist when their savior is criticized.
He campaigned saying he would eliminate the deficit.
He campaigned that he would reduce our military footprint around the world.
He campaigned that the Fed was too loose with monetary policy.
He called the stock market a bubble at 17,000 and now cheers every day at 25,000.
He campaigned that he would build a wall.
He campaigned that he would reduce our trade deficit.
Jesus you nitwits have really drunk the koolaid.
The stupid, it burns.
Trump is still your POTUS, snowflake.
I really do need an IQ test to weed out dullards and retards who display no critical thinking skills, but cheer for false narratives with their pea brains.
It is, was, and always will be an expenditure issue. The ONLY way it could ever be addressed is to slash the welfare and military outlays by around $1.5 trillion a year. Nothing they do with tax – either increasing it or decreasing it- will matter. People will avoid tax, one way or another.
Want to balance the budget – kill off welfare, slash the military, and wipe out 2/3 of govt employees. Just another one of those simple ideas I mentioned before.
But because that involves pain, which is no longer an option as a fix to any problem, no matter how severe, it will never happen.
LLPOH, I think it is an option if it is slow rolled over a decade or 2. BUT you must cut about 2/3rds of all laws and regulations and return student loans to the unsecured debt column also.
THE OTHER HALF of it that I always like to bring up…TPTB will not put up with any pain on their end either. Soooooo, it’s a no-go.
Both Trump and Hitlery share the same royal bloodline (research it for yourself). In fact, all presidents can be traced back to lines of british royalty … that includes oblama and his he-she wookie buddy. Fact of the matter is, all presidential candidate are pre-selected. I know. It hurts to admit we’ve been played. (I am so destined to be one of the first occupants of a fema camp)
Motley,
I’ve heard this bloodline stuff many times. How are you going to prove it?
He is not. He is a fuckwit.
We have large trade deficits because 1. we off-shored most of our industry, 2. we have very disadvantageous trade agreements with China and Asia in general, and 3. we are importing 9 million barrels/day of oil, and that will only increase as fracking runs out of borrowed money, and 4. we are paying 300 billion/yr in welfare to immigrants, some of which is being remitted to their home countries…
Your first point is the key.
We “off-shored” industry by taxing it. Those taxes took the form of environmental and workplace regulation. These were gradually implemented over 50 years. The way to avoid the negative consequences would have been to gradually impose tarriffs over those same 50 years.
You can’t impose costly and restrictive regulations on domestic industry while allowing unrestricted importation from countries that impose no such costs, and expect your economy to flourish … yet that’s exactly what “we” did.
Trump’s tarriffs are … this is important … hypothetically, the simple fix to this problem we’ve created over the last 50 years. Realistically, however, they can’t work for reasons cited by other commenters.
The tarriffs can’t resolve in a few years a situation that took half a century to create. They would need to be gradual and perpetual (i.e. ongoing U.S. policy). Trying to impose larger tarriffs over a shorter time only harms the U.S. economy even more. Especially when everyone and their uncle knows that the tarriffs will end … either in 2021 or 2025 depending on whether Trump gets re-elected. That’s why corporations are not “re-shoring” operations to the U.S., and will not do so. The rats have left this sinking ship, and tarriffs that are inevitably temporary can’t lure them back. Without this “re-shoring” the tarriffs have no purpose but to increase the cost of goods here in the good ol’ FUSA. Trump is trying to patch the tear in the hull of the Titanic made by the iceberg … after the liner has already broken in half amidships.
We’re screwed. We screwed ourselves. And Trump cannot save us.
you mentioned oil & fracking–we are exporting oil but many tankers are coming back w/nothing but seawater–
it’s stupid for us to export something we need & will eventually run out of–
People still read Bloomberg ?
Govt 101 – spending comes from Congress.
Until Congress slows down/stops passing spending bills that exceed income, whoever the prez happens to be can only do so much.
Anyone remember Reagan fighting with Congress, trying to get them to slow down on spending?
The opinion polls (for what they were worth) kept showing support for Spend, Spend, Spend ;so Reagan ending up signing the bill.
Reminds me of the line about getting what they asked for – good and hard.
That, of course, is a gross oversimplification. I’ve heard this excuse from (so-called) conservatives for nearly 40 years.
Veto. Veto. Veto. Every budget with a deficit – veto. It would be a start and make a statement.
Trump just cut off Federal money to anti-free speech colleges, so there’s that…As far as the deficits go, Federal spending goes up about 5% a year regardless of who’s President, and probably more than that with 3d world welfare seekers streaming into the country…If Trump tried to slash spending, he would fail, and not get re-elected, so it’s utterly futile…
If everything is utterly futile, WTF are you doing on TBP.
What’s the point of saying what should be done if it is all utterly futile.
Trump made a fucking speech about cutting federal money for colleges. It is nothing but PR. He won’t cut jack shit and you believe him. That’s utterly stupid.
Boy, you really did wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
What’s he doing on TBP? I think he’s pointing out that the platform is on fucking fire. That what Trump does, doesn’t do, promises he keeps or fails to keep don’t matter. TINVOWOOT. We do not live in a republic of reasonable people with a shared appreciation for liberty (economic and otherwise). We live in a kleptocratic, oligarchic, socialist, quasi-fascist, pure democracy filled coast to coast with imbeciles at each others’ throats and no one minding the till.
What’s TBP doing here?
Who should we be voting for? What is the NON-futile answer? Or, is there just no problem in the first place? All is well?
I get up every day pissed off. Are you happy with the state of this country? Or would you rather treat this as an intellectual exercise in masturbation?
Your attitude of nonchalance is as irritating as the Trumpeteer cheer leading.
TBP has been here for 10 years pointing out what needed to be done when there was still a chance to do something. We should have voted for Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012. Yes, collapse is the choice we’ve made by choosing the wrong politicians and the wrong policies. After the collapse it will matter which ideas are implemented and TBP will continue to put forth those ideas. All is well with me. I continue to tilt against windmills. How about you?
Jim,
Where was all the fire breathing on your 30 blocks of squalor video? I was dissatisfied with the video because I was expecting some serious venting in tongues.
I love you, my brother and that ain’t gay.
You can’t satisfy everyone.
You will never hear me say anything less than “You’re the Man, Jim”.
I’ll never forget the fact you actually sent me a Ron Paul DVD in 07/08. I was amazed that a person I never met before would do something like that.
You’re the Man, Jim.
I still have a stack of those DVDs in my home office.
You’re a special breed of person. I hope I meet you on the other side.
You can meet me at Hardscrabble’s cookout.
Hmm, I’m working on getting out there. My wife and I will, hopefully, be on an east coast north to south (or vice versa) marketing/sales tour for our new company and will try to make it.
There are two sides to every mountain, maybe he meant that side. I can’t see waiting an eternity to meet anybody, I’d forget why I wanted to meet them.
DB, I said Trump lifted Ron Paul’s program for his winning campaign. It is always so. The ‘C’ student picks the brains of the ‘A’ student and goes on to the finish line.
At my age, I can take a philosophical view. Yes, people have taken my ideas and claimed them as their own. In the end, they will be found out, I have seen it happen in real life.
I only taught you everything you know, not everything I know. – Pangloss
wip,
except when they leave the 30 blocks & hurt innocent people,i have more anger toward an iowa farmer who accepts crop subsidies than i do toward a person in the 30 blocks-
who is more at fault,a multi generational welfare mom who got pregnant at 16 or a college grad who goes home & takes over the family farm?
Tampa,
I’m lost at what you’re comment is in reference to.
Sometimes I feel like voting for Master Beto or Cory “Hamster” Booker. At least we’d go down more quickly. Kinda like Buckley’s theory on immanentizing the eschaton, but fiscally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton
This may not be a good time to point out what I said early-on, that Trump had adopted Ron Paul’s agenda for his own benefit. He modified it to suit his needs. All the people who gloated about his bending over the other candidates never realized that Trump did not owe them shit and would therefore be free to do as he pleased. That’s what they call in poli-sci classes a ‘big mistake’.
I think Trump meant well at first but then got an ear full about the Kennedy killing in Dallas and how tragic it would if the same happened to him. Seriously ,he is surrounded by traitors who are not going to let him or anyone else do anything that would truly help our nation.These secret societies types ( Jew and Gentile ) see it as their duty to destroy America in order to bring in their New World Order. They are Hell bent on this mission . Nothing happens by accident in politics . The shit we think as random events are well though out plans. Kennedy was our last hope of changing the debt money system as He gave orders to have our treasurer issue our own money debt free. Johnson gave another order on the plane just after Kennedy was declare dead to forbid the treasurer from issuing anymore debt free money. His first order was to stop what Kennedy had started. This would have saved us from what’s coming. It’s to late now.
I think I will go watch the basketball games like Stucky. You know I hate fucking sports but I’m going to do it anyway.Just for spite.
The deficits will only grow until the monetary system is re-tooled and debt free money, in whatever form, is paid out as wages in place of bank credit, currently in effect.
Until a form of money that carries a usufructuary right, beyond the reach of taxation, is issued for the public benefit under article 1 section 8 clause 2 or 5, it will only get worse. The fatal flaw of the current iteration of debt slavery will devour everything as it’s setup to do.
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take this power away from them, and all the great fortunes disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control credit.
Attributed to Josiah Stamp by Silas W. Adams in The Legalized Crime of Banking (1958).”
The $$ will be accepted FOREVER or else. Or else what you ask? Or we bomb you up the ass.
Repub or dem, doesn’t matter – debt ALWAYS goes up… it has to; that’s what you get with a ponzi scheme for a monetary system. And nothing will change until the U.S. collapses or defeated in a nuclear war or hell freezes over.
The. Geniuses have figured out the hidden agenda. What a hoot
Did anyone who knows math think sincerely there was a way of out this debt spiral ? One way – new form of currency to make things all better. Last ditch effort from a bottom of the barrel choice of leaders
Mr. Thought- Inflation, you simply inflate away the debt. Hyper-inflate the money supply then reset the currency, called aptly (a reset).
There are some months of pain involved but look on the bright side, it will inflate away your debts also if you properly prepare. TPTB have been practicing resets for almost a century on a global scale.