Tag Archives: Deficit

Obama: “We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control”

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I was hoping not to be reading this:

Obama aims to halve deficit by 2013

by Ross Colvin

Feb 22 (Reuters) — Obama wants to slash the ballooning deficit in half by 2013, U.S. officials said Saturday, after massively increasing public spending to stem the worst economic crisis in decades.

The president will outline his ambitious goal when he hosts a summit at the White House Monday on fiscal responsibility and later in the week when his administration presents a summary of its first budget, for the 2010 fiscal year.

“We can’t generate sustained growth without getting our deficits under control,” Obama said in his weekly radio address in which he also announced immediate implementation of tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans as part of the effort to stimulate the economy.

And he may succeed by letting the top tax rates rise in 2010. This would raise taxes for people with relatively low propensities to consume, until the strong economy again drives the budget into surplus and thereby causes the next crash.

If he first allows the budget deficit to get large enough to add the savings that will support the subsequent Obamaboom that brings the deficit down.


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IMF warns of ‘disturbing’ UK debt

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IMF warns of ‘disturbing’ UK debt

The level of debt in the UK is “disturbing,” the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the BBC that given the severity of the economic downturn, more government borrowing was the lesser of two evils.

No, he’s the greater evil. Another deficit terrorist.


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Government spending may be accelerating

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US Jan budget surplus narrows as spending hits record

by David Lawder

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – The U.S. government posted a $17.84 billion budget surplus for January, less than half the year-earlier surplus, as spending hit a record for the month while receipts fell from a year ago, the U.S. Treasury said on Tuesday.

The January surplus narrowed compared to a year-earlier surplus of $38.24 billion and also missed the $23.5 billion surplus forecast by economists polled by Reuters.

A Treasury spokeswoman said January is more often a deficit-producing month, with January deficits in 34 of the past 53 years.

Federal outlays last month grew to $237.38 billion — a record for the month of January — from $222.37 billion in January 2007.

Might be back on the 7% growth trend as 2007 spending my have been delayed and moved forward to 2008.

But after years of consistently strong year-on-year growth, government tax receipts dipped to $255.22 billion in January from $260.61 billion from the same month a year earlier.

Could be a sign of economic weakness.

I don’t have the details yet – there can be a lot more to these numbers than the headlines indicate.

Economic data has shown a substantial slowing of the U.S. economy in recent weeks, including a decline of 17,000 non-farm jobs in January. The White House has forecast that the full-year budget deficit will more than double to $410 billion this year due to the revenue slowdown and a $152 billion in fiscal stimulus spending package.

Now a $169 billion package.

The deficit for the first four months of fiscal 2008, which began Oct. 1, widened to $87.70 billion, from a $42.17 billion budget gap for the same period a year earlier. (Reporting by David Lawder; editing by Gary Crosse)

Government spending and exports now supporting GDP and offsetting some of the consumer weakness.

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