NY Times Projections Show U.S. Budget Deficit Will Shrink .... $214 billion drop

[Botany]

WASHINGTON — The federal budget deficit will fall to $759 billion for the fiscal year that ends
this September, a $214 billion improvement from the projection made in March, as spending cuts,
tax increases and an improving economy begin to tame the government’s red ink, the White House
budget office said on Monday.

The annual midsession review from the White House Office of Management and Budget was largely
in line with a recent forecast from the Congressional Budget Office. Both see a rapid decline in deficits
expressed as a percentage of the economy, the fastest since the years following World War II, according
to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the White House budget director. The White House said this year’s deficit
would reach 4.7 percent of the gross domestic product, down from more than 10 percent four years ago,
and would continue to slide to 3 percent of the economy by 2017.

snip

(this does not stop republicans such as Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III from being ass hats)

Republicans in Congress, who are pressing for a budget that actually balances in 10 years, did not greet the
new figures with relief.

“The president’s plan is simply to tax more in order to spend more: avoiding any attempt at reducing the
waste and inefficiency that plagues the federal budget,” Mr. Sessions said.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/projections-show-u-s-budget-deficit-will-shrink/

[djean111]

1. Congress is going to press for even more austerity.

They are intent on erasing social programs, they do not care about the deficit at all, it is just a smokescreen.
I think, with Social Security, the real struggle is between those who want to privatize it in order to rip out commissions and handling fees, and the corporations who do not want to contribute matching funds.

[Botany]

2. "they do not care about the deficit at all, it is just a smokescreen"

Bingo "they" didn't say word one as W took the surplus he inherited from
Bill Clinton and turned it into a huge deficit by getting us into 2 unneeded
and unfunded wars, tax cuts for the rich, and unfunded medicare drug
plan that added billions to the deficit but the minute Obama got into the
White House "they" all became deficit hawks.

Dick Cheney; You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.
to Paul O'Neill, then Treasury Secretary. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney

[JayhawkSD]

3. Well, it's going to have to do some fancy cost cutting...

...since current spending for the first nine months has already incurred a $970 billion deficit.

That is according to the US Treasury statement itself, and translates to an annual deficit of $1.29 trilllion.

Projections and estimates are all very well, but when you wnat the truth, look at the checkbook. The government has, as of the end of june, actually spent $970 billion more than it has taken in, so the NYT is blowing smoke up your dress with its nonsensical deficit estimate.

Edit: Just as a point of interest, spending extrapolates to $3.605 trillion, which is more than the $3.455 trillion spent last year, so "austerity" does not seem to be the operative word for what our government is doing, and the "sequester" would seem to bee more sound than actual effect.

[Botany]

4. I'll believe a nobel prize winner in economics over some random poster on the internets

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/the-dwindling-deficit/

[JayhawkSD]

5. Well, I pulled up an old link, so I need to correct myself.

Current US Treasury report is here.

It shows a current fiscal year deficit of $939 billion, which is a 14% reduction over that of last year.

That, however, is due to increased revenue, because current fiscal year spending projects to $3.64 trillion, compared to $3.54 trillions last year.

As to who to believe, don't beileve me. It's not about me. I am not producing any opinions. These are numbers printed by the US Treasury Department. If you think Paul Krugmans theories are more valid than the actual numbers printed by the Treasury Departmen then good for you. I think I'll stick with reality.

[lark]

6. Switching goal posts

Isn't it just amazing how all of a sudden, deficits don't matter, when before they were the only thing you heard about from the party of NO. We're bankrupting our children, they ranted, has now become we need to be cost effective, but only on their terms. Funny how they don't think about that when they are voting to repeal ACA for the 37th time and there's no way that it will be actually repealed. Now it's the "waste and inefficiency" (only from the left side?) that has got to go and decreasing the deficits doesn't matter at all.

No real moral center - that's todays Repugs for ya.

[Igel]

7. I wasn't sure who you were talking about for a while there.

The party that blocked stimulus spending in 2008 because we desperately needed to cut the deficits to save the economy and not bankrupt our kids, the party who's nominee called the deficit spending that year unsustainable and promised to reduce it sharply in his first term.

Or the party that blocked stimulus spending in 2009 because we desperately needed to limit deficits to save the economy and not bankrupt our kids, the party whose nominee in the next election cycle called the deficit spending unsustainable and promised to reduce it sharply in his first term.

The party in the first paragraph very quickly came to completely repudiate those principles.

The party in the second paragraph, having violated every one of those principles, had in fact only recently come to believe in those principles.

Few want to go on record as being opposed to the goals of spending. Instead, they mouth that the goals are at least okay, but the spending has to be cut. As soon as the spending suits their agenda, however, it's clear that it's not the spending that's at issue but what the money would be spent on--my goals are laudable, but the other guy's are necessary crap.