US Budget Deficit Down 37.6 Percent Through July

[elleng]

Source: nyt/ap

The government has reported a $97.6 billion deficit for July but remains on track to post its lowest annual budget gap in five years.

July's figure raises the deficit so far for the 2013 budget year to $607.4 billion, the government says. That's 37.6 percent below the $973.8 billion deficit for the first 10 months of the 2012 budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the annual deficit will be $670 billion when the budget year ends Sept. 30, far below last year's $1.09 trillion. It would mark the first year that the gap between spending and revenue has been below $1 trillion since 2008.

Steady economic growth, higher taxes, lower government spending and increased dividends from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have helped shrink the deficit.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/08/12/us/politics/ap-us-budget-deficit.html?hp

[Bandit]

1. Remember how upset we were when Bush* had the "record deficits" of less than $670 billion?

I guess with Obama it is just fine.

[Fringe]

2. I don't remember.

I don't remember many democrats ever complaining about the deficit and I've been lurking here since Howard Dean. I voted for him in the primary. The war was big back then, and many people here were pro war.

Of course back then, most people on du hated him. Boy have things changed.

[DainBramaged]

3. So beating the dead horse that the deficits are Obama's fault is ok with you?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. That would be a unicorn. It doesn't even rise to the level of dead horse. nt

[Bandit]

16. Obama increased Defense Spending

While it is nice to say record Deficits are finally coming down, they still are not down to even where they were when Bush* was setting records with them annually. Obama increased the Defense Budget in his Budget. Defense cuts are the ONLY thing that will get us back on a fiscally responisble path. Obama is not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. I am happy we have a Democrat as our President but I wish he would act like one..

[DainBramaged]

19. Obama increased?

I think you'd better review the last few approved budgets....



For the 2011 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $664.84 billion.[1][dead link][2]

When the budget was signed into law on 28 October 2009, the final size of the Department of Defense's budget was $680 billion, $16 billion more than President Obama had requested.[3] An additional $37 billion supplemental bill to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was expected to pass in the spring of 2010, but has been delayed by the House of Representatives after passing the Senate.[4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States



Have a nice day

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Remember how Bush had a trillion dollar deficit & wasted the US economy?

I guess you are just fine with that.

When things go from bad to worse then back to bad, we say that bad is better than worse.

Clearer?

[elleng]

7. THANKS!

[DCBob]

18. I was upset BushCheney lied us into a very costly war..

now I am happy Obama is finally getting us out.

[mikekohr]

20. President Obama, the greatest deficit reducer of all time

Super Deficit Reducer
-President Obama-

You'd never know this fact if all you listened to was the Chicken Little, sky is falling crowd, of Faux Gnus. And if all you listened to was the Nixon aide, turned right-wing propaganda huckster, Roger Ailes's, fact free network, you certainly would not be aware that President Obama's deficit reduction results would be even greater if the obstructionist Congress would allow the President to remove the biggest single contributors to today's yearly deficits, namely the George W. Bush era tax give-a-ways to the rich.
?


Republicans ran the economy over a cliff, put in place spending and tax policies that exploded the debt, and then after America elected Barack Obama as President, engaged in unprecedented obstructionism all the while crying that President Obama is not fixing their catastrophic failures quickly enough.
Most amazing in all this, is that on a political level, the Republican Party and Faux Gnus has succeeded. Most Americans are not aware that President Obama's economic policies have actually shrunk the yearly deficit both in raw numbers, and in relation to GDP, the only true way to examine the size of the national debt from administration to administration.
?
?
In the fiscal year 2008-2009, the last year of George W. Bush's budgets, the yearly deficit was $1.4 trillion dollars. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the upcoming 2014 deficit will : "shrink this year to $845 billion, or 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), its smallest size since 2008."

Steve Benen of the Maddow Blog, notes that this is the fastest deficit reduction since the end of World War II and at the same time resulted in the strongest job creation in 8 years.

For the math impaired Republican Party and their hair on fire friends at Faux Gnus that is a reduction of $555 billion or a reduction of 40%. In raw numbers, -the misleading numbers that Faux Gnus uses- this is more deficit reduction than all other presidents in history combined.

Adversity presents opportunity, and President Obama, like every other Democratic President was presented with the opportunity to fix a failed economy from his Republican predecessor. President Obama has achieved historic accomplishment because in part he was presented with a a failure of epic proportions.

Republican criticism of the President is nothing more than they wishing to be the hero of their own self inflicted disaster.



http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/2013/04/president-obama-greatest-deficit.html

[Scurrilous]

6. Thanks.

K & R

[pampango]

8. According to Krugman, Paul and Cantor don't know this. :)

I think it’s pretty clear that Paul actually has no idea that the deficit is falling; it’s quite possible that neither does Cantor. The whole incident reminds me of 2011, when supposedly well-informed candidates like Tim Pawlenty went on about soaring government employment during a time of unprecedented cuts in the public payroll. Once you’re inside the closed conservative information loop, you know lots of things that aren’t so.

What I’m curious about, however, is what the public knows. Larry Bartels likes to cite a 1996 poll in which voters were asked whether the deficit had increased or decreased under Clinton (it had, in fact, fallen sharply). A plurality of voters — and a heavy majority of Republicans — thought the deficit had gone up.

So I’d love to see a comparable poll now — asking, say, what has happened to the deficit since 2009. (It has actually been cut more than 50 percent). My bet is that it would look like that 1996 poll.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/a-poll-id-like-to-see/

[elleng]

9. Yup.

[hue]

10. Remember how Bush/Cheney lied to support the UNFUNDED War on Iraq??

Remember this post?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023062130

and this?? Interview: Dick Cheney Says Bush Tax Cuts Cause HUGE Deficit Thru 2013


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/01/1041408/-Interview-Dick-Cheney-Says-Bush-Tax-Cuts-Cause-HUGE-Deficit-Thru-2013

[elleng]

11. Thanks

[Thav]

12. Man, those deficits are just ballooning like crazy!

They're skyrocketing! Going up with no end in sight! Just today Paul Ryan said the deficit was over a jillion dollars and growing expositionally each day!

[Whoopdedoo]

14. Just like

Preaching a lie. Made me look up expositionally and damn if it doesn't fit perfectly!

[Thav]

15. Hahah, totally unintentional

I meant to pick a word that sounded like "exponentially."

[Berlum]

13. "Damn it. Damn it all to Hell." - RepubliCons (R)

[DCBob]

17. Blame it on Obama's socialism!

[Kingofalldems]

21. K and R this good news for Democrats