Does anybody realize the deficit is down 54% since 2009? $1.4t to $640b in FY13

[Ryan]

I've been doing some digging into the latest FY13 estimates from the CBO, and as of September, the CBO estimated that the deficit for FY13 was going to land at $640 billion. Considering the FY13 financial year also ended in September, those figures should be very accurate.

Link: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/Table_1-revised_GDP_projections.pdf

That's a 54% drop in 4 years ($1.4 trillion in 2009). The CBO projects that it will continue to drop for two more years, then the major drivers increasing the deficit will be mandatory outlays (Medicare and Social Security) and interest on the national debt......

 

[ivwshane]

Why do think the republicans are trying to trash the ACA and the country with the shut down and the debt ceiling?

The dems will have an absolutely positive record to run on and the republicans will have nothing (they usually run on, "we aren't as bad as the other guys").

 

[Jhhnn]

I've been doing some digging into the latest FY13 estimates from the CBO, and as of September, the CBO estimated that the deficit for FY13 was going to land at $640 billion. Considering the FY13 financial year also ended in September, those figures should be very accurate.

Link: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/Table_1-revised_GDP_projections.pdf

That's a 54% drop in 4 years ($1.4 trillion in 2009). The CBO projects that it will continue to drop for two more years, then the major drivers increasing the deficit will be mandatory outlays (Medicare and Social Security) and interest on the national debt......

Teahadists don't believe in facts. They follow the principles of Truthiness and the wisdom of Faux News.

You might as well try to fill the grand canyon by pissing over the edge.

 

[shady28]

Figures can lie, and liars can figure.

The 2013 budget deficit is higher as a percentage of GDP than all but one of the years from 1980 to 2008.

Your statistical manipulation is like saying someone who has an income of $100 took on debt of $20-30 per year from 1980 until 2008, and then in 2009 Obama had us start taking on $60 of debt, and now that they're back to $40 per year, somehow that's grand.

 

[RedShirt]

Imagine what it'd be if there were actually "substantial" cuts to the budget. I'm not talking about anything like killing off any program, but talking more about trying to increase effectiveness and cut off 100 billion a year.

Things like trying to get more people off food stamps (easier said than done), trimming some off military budget, and creating more jobs (again, easier said than done, this would help with the food stamp issue).

I think some people need to realize that we simply can't just keep piling on new programs when we can't even pay for the ones we have. The best we can hope for is a slowdown of new spending so we can finally catch up to what is already implemented.

Of course, this is a pipe dream.

 

[Ryan]

Figures can lie, and liars can figure.

The 2013 budget deficit is higher as a percentage of GDP than all but one of the years from 1980 to 2008.

Your statistical manipulation is like saying someone who has an income of $100 took on debt of $20-30 per year from 1980 until 2008, and then in 2009 Obama had us start taking on $60 of debt, and now that they're back to $40 per year, somehow that's grand.

Have you realized that we are speaking about updated figures? Your chart is outdated....the deficit to GDP ratio is currently estimated at 3.9% for 2013 ($16,596 trillion GDP / $642 billion deficit). That makes it lower than 7 of those years you quoted, and equal to two..........

 

[Matt1970]

FY 2008: $458 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2006: $248 billion
FY 2005: $318 billion

These are the deficits that were irresponsible, unpatriotic.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

This only works politically if we ignore at least two counter arguments that can be made against this post. One being that we can still cut more and still continue those rosey economic figures with this short term trend or as shady28 put it that trend is a short term trend of deficit reduction which has been caused by those evil sequester cuts which were minor in scope but are not the long term trend, especially if Democrats would have their way.

 

[Tom]

Figures can lie, and liars can figure.

The 2013 budget deficit is higher as a percentage of GDP than all but one of the years from 1980 to 2008.

Your statistical manipulation is like saying someone who has an income of $100 took on debt of $20-30 per year from 1980 until 2008, and then in 2009 Obama had us start taking on $60 of debt, and now that they're back to $40 per year, somehow that's grand.

I guess you've forgotten what happened in 2008 that led to 2009 spending ?

We'd still be in the Bush depression without it.

 

[Jhhnn]

FY 2008: $458 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2006: $248 billion
FY 2005: $318 billion

These are the deficits that were irresponsible, unpatriotic.

Those numbers are total horseshit. Real numbers here-

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

 

[Jhhnn]

Have you realized that we are speaking about updated figures? Your chart is outdated....the deficit to GDP ratio is currently estimated at 3.9% for 2013 ($16,596 trillion GDP / $642 billion deficit). That makes it lower than 7 of those years you quoted, and equal to two..........

Yeh, but that lacks truthiness, as the truth often does.

 

[cubby1223]

Maybe if the Democrats hadn't blocked every Republican effort through the Bush years to look into what Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were up to, there wouldn't have been the crash in '08.

You guys want to go for another round of which political party is to blame? I know we can go back and forth for a long time, it's been done plenty of times in this forum.

 

[Ryan]

Yeh, but that lacks truthiness, as the truth often does.

lulz

 

[Jhhnn]

Maybe if the Democrats hadn't blocked every Republican effort through the Bush years to look into what Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were up to, there wouldn't have been the crash in '08.

You guys want to go for another round of which political party is to blame? I know we can go back and forth for a long time, it's been done plenty of times in this forum.

Utter bullshit. Repubs held majorities in the HOR & the Senate from Jan 2003 until Jan 2007, and the White House from Jan 2001 to Jan 2009, the period of time when the housing bubble went nuts.

They sure as Hell didn't let the Dem majority stop them on much of anything else they wanted at the time, so they obviously didn't want to deal wit the GSE's very much at all. They merely created political cover for saps like you.

Remember Dubya touting the Ownership Society from the Bully pulpit? The pics of his regulators taking mini-chainsaws to piles of banking paperwork? Moves by the SEC that let the shadow banking system leverage up to 30:1 & higher?

How about the pundits & prognosticators of the Right? Yeh, these guys-

http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2008/07/official-list-of-punditsexperts-who.html

The problem with Righties is that they think they get to invent their own facts, ignore the real ones.

 

[nehalem256]

Maybe if the Democrats hadn't blocked every Republican effort through the Bush years to look into what Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac were up to, there wouldn't have been the crash in '08.

Or maybe if Clinton hadn't handed Bush housing prices that were already at record levels as well as the collapse of the Internet bubble at the same time...

Real economic genius that Clinton.

 

[Bowfinger]

[ ... ]
The problem with Righties is that they think they get to invent their own facts, ignore the real ones.

Sadly, I think in the majority of cases they don't even know the difference. They are fully indoctrinated by the nutter disinformation bubble, and haven't a clue that most of what they "know" is propaganda. I see this even in some of my most intelligent and reasoned conservative friends. Discussing political issues becomes a delicate reeducation on the truthy "facts" they've been fed by their infotainers and propagandists. (And yes, I'm very selective about who I'll discuss politics with. I avoid trying to talk to the loons of both extremes, other than really generic comments.)

 

[boomerang]

Imagine what it'd be if there were actually "substantial" cuts to the budget. I'm not talking about anything like killing off any program, but talking more about trying to increase effectiveness and cut off 100 billion a year.

Things like trying to get more people off food stamps (easier said than done), trimming some off military budget, and creating more jobs (again, easier said than done, this would help with the food stamp issue).

I think some people need to realize that we simply can't just keep piling on new programs when we can't even pay for the ones we have. The best we can hope for is a slowdown of new spending so we can finally catch up to what is already implemented.

Of course, this is a pipe dream.

It just hasn't got up to the top of the to-do list yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWQQVRTCeMk

 

[Smoblikat]

I've been doing some digging into the latest FY13 estimates from the CBO, and as of September, the CBO estimated that the deficit for FY13 was going to land at $640 billion. Considering the FY13 financial year also ended in September, those figures should be very accurate.

Link: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/Table_1-revised_GDP_projections.pdf

That's a 54% drop in 4 years ($1.4 trillion in 2009). The CBO projects that it will continue to drop for two more years, then the major drivers increasing the deficit will be mandatory outlays (Medicare and Social Security) and interest on the national debt......

See below

FY 2008: $458 billion
FY 2007: $161 billion
FY 2006: $248 billion
FY 2005: $318 billion

These are the deficits that were irresponsible, unpatriotic.

 

[Attic]

Have you realized that we are speaking about updated figures? Your chart is outdated....the deficit to GDP ratio is currently estimated at 3.9% for 2013 ($16,596 trillion GDP / $642 billion deficit). That makes it lower than 7 of those years you quoted, and equal to two..........

He made an excellent point regarding the relative nature of our deficit. You ran with the "54%!!!! OMG" garbage that is misleading, he simply called a spade a spade.

Maybe you don't understand the outlier deficit for 2009 that exploded it to 1.4trillion, when prior years were less than half, and what contributed to it. But if you don't, you shouldn't use it as the basis for a reasonable comparison for ongoing deficits measures as you have done.

The most recent deficit number for 2013 that I have seen is 672billion, not the estimated 640.


Beyond that, current GDP has been "augmented" by nearly a trillion additional dollars that were recently creatively defined into it. See the recent GDP updated that magically added 550b that wasn't there before and a recent 200b addition out of nowhere from non revolving debt. This makes debt to GDP look better, the creative nature of these recent "adjustments" to GDP do not change the actual problems. It's actually a warning sign.

When it gets bad enough, lie.

 

[Ryan]

See below

Did my first post even bring up Bush spending or those deficits? In fact, you'll notice that it actually made no mention of anything particularly partisan to begin with......

 

[Matt1970]

Those numbers are total horseshit. Real numbers here-

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Debt vs deficit. Try and keep up.

 

[Ryan]

He made an excellent point regarding the relative nature of our deficit. You ran with the "54%!!!! OMG garbage that is misleading", he simply called a spade a spade.

Maybe you don't understand the outlier deficit for 2009 and what contributed to it. But if you don't, you shouldn't use it as the basis for a reasonable comparison for ongoing deficits measures as you have done.


Beyond that, current GDP has been "augmented" by nearly a trillion additional dollars that were recently creatively defined into it. See the recent GDP updated that magically added 550b that wasn't there before and a recent 200b addition out of nowhere from non revolving debt. This makes debt to GDP look better, the creative nature of these recent "adjustments" to GDP do not change the actual problems. It's actually a warning sign.

When it gets bad enough, lie.

I think the general point I was trying to make is that regardless of what the opposition says about big spending Democrats and the need to spend less, we are indeed on a major short term downward trend when it comes to spending and the deficit. The only areas left to do any significant reforms will be the sacred cows of each party - Medicare, social security, and tax reform (tax increases).

I'd bet the farm that if you asked the majority of Republican and conservative constituents how much the deficit has dropped since Obama's first year, the majority would say none......and that's a terrible starting point when we need to politicians to be honest about the hole we're in.

 

[Smoblikat]

Did my first post even bring up Bush spending or those deficits? In fact, you'll notice that it actually made no mention of anything particularly partisan to begin with......

Did my post even mention bush?

The point I was trying to get across is that celebrating such a huge deficit is like thanking your murderer for only shooting you in one leg, rather than two.....

 

[boomerang]

The Black Swan in the Perfect Storm

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

When QE ends there will be hell to pay.