Meanwhile, Federal Budget Deficit Swells to $263.3B

[uppityperson]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004277363_apfederalbudget.html

The Treasury Department says the federal deficit swelled to $263.3 billion in the first five months of this budget year as record spending during the period outpaced record revenues. The department's latest snapshot of the government's balance sheets, released Wednesday, shows that the deficit for the budget year that began Oct. 1 was up a whopping 62 percent from the red ink of $162.2 billion for the corresponding five-month period last year.

The latest year-to-date budget deficit of $263.3 billion was an all-time high, the government said. Spending totaled a record $1.23 trillion, while revenues totaled $967.2 billion, also an all-time high. For the month of February alone, the government ran a deficit of $175.6 billion, a record for any single month. That was larger than the shortfall of around $170 billion that economists were expecting.

One of the reasons the deficit was running higher was related to a calendar issue, the Congressional Budget Office said. Because March 1 fell on weekend, payments that the government would ordinarily have made in March were instead made at the end of February. That caused spending to be higher in February, contributing to the larger budget deficit.

The White House predicts that the deficit this year will increase to $410 billion, as the economic slowdown cuts into tax revenues. Many analysts predict economic growth will be feeble in the January-to-March quarter; a growing number believe the economy is actually shrinking now. Under one rough rule, the economy would need to contract for six straight months to be considered in a recession. The Bush administration and many private economists are hopeful that the economic growth will pick up in the second half of 2008, as the government's $168 billion rescue package of tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses ripple through the economy. The Federal Reserve's interest rate reductions also should energize the economy in the second half of the year.

So far this budget year, the biggest spending categories are programs from the Health and Human Services Department, including Medicare and Medicaid, $292.9 billion; Social Security, $270.5 billion; military, $247.6 billion; and interest on the public debt, $198.5 billion.

So, about that possible $600 stimulus thing...

[islandmkl]

1. how about the $200 BILLION yesterday....

[spanone]

2. shhhh, a man had sex with a hooker

[uppityperson]

4. I know. Sad. Just for fun, here is a website I look at sometimes

Actually here is a story on the website I look at sometimes.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803111337.html

Kenya: Violence Rages Despite Heavy Security in Volatile Zone

12 March 2008
Posted to the web 11 March 2008

Moses Mwathi
Nairobi

Police vehicles jam a dusty and bumpy path leading to Rumuruti forest in Laikipia West District in the wake of renewed wave of violence that has claimed more than 13 lives and left property worth millions of shillings in ruins.

A sharp stench wafts in the air and dead bodies and clothing litter the path. A few metres away fire is spreading fast across five villages, consuming both household goods and creating a swath of wasteland.

Gunshots can be heard from a few kilometres away deep in the bush, prompting some security officers to head to that direction. Another contingent is dispatched to unblock the Nyahururu-Maralal road near Gatundia, which women, children and older men have barricaded, protesting at the soaring insecurity. Residents accuse police of being of little help.

The ethnic violence, triggered off by the earlier lynching of a suspected cattle thief, opened fresh wounds of hatred and suspicion, precipitated by cattle rustling that has rocked the area for decades...

And another. Nothing to do with budget deficit, but interesting all the same.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803121138.html
Rwanda: UN Tribunal Increases Sentence for Priest to Life in Prison

A Roman Catholic priest in Rwanda who directed the demolition of a church where about 1,500 Tutsis were trying to take shelter during the 1994 genocide, killing those trapped inside, has been sentenced to life in prison after a United Nations war crimes tribunal today increased his jail term.

[Mountainman]

3. I never understand why they include social security as spending.

The money is collected from people and employers for a specific purpose. Including it with other spending let's the right call it an entitlement when in actuality if the government spends it on something other than social security payments then it is borrowing from the people paying into it

We put money in a fund and we are owed that money. That is different from paying income taxes and the government spends in on the Iraq war.

[magellan]

6. If I were crazy enough to become president

...Social Security is the first thing I'd lock up tighter than a duck's ass. The Federal Gov't has got to stop treating it as revenue -- it ISN'T.

Bush I started this practice so he could keep his "promise" of not raising taxes. IOW he turned Social Security into a stealth tax. And then he wound up raising general taxes anyway!

BS.

[AndyA]

5. Well all I have to say is THANK GOD we have a FISCAL CONSERVATIVE

in office!

Can you imagine what the deficit would be if a DEMOCRAT were in the White House!!!

:sarcasm:

[uppityperson]

7. That made me laugh. Indeed, good thing it's been the party of small government

along with compassionate whateverthehellitwas.