patrick.net

The federal gov't ran a surplus in April (the month taxes are due). Who would have guessed?

Fiscal year to date, we are $382 billion in the hole. That's 10% worse than the previous year in the same period.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53821

We are probably running the biggest deficit (yearly) in the history of the country right now. Congress doesn't have to increase any spending to keep that rolling. They would have to slash social security and medicare, and sideline the military, making our oldsters die hungry and ceding military control of the world in order get our budget into the red with our current tax rates.

WarrenTheApe says

They would have to slash social security and medicare, and sideline the military, making our oldsters die hungry and ceding military control of the world in order get our budget into the red with our current tax rates.

Perfect, Social security and most of medicare is paid out of FICA and have nothing to do with the budget deficit. Congress has been stealing from these programs for 30 years to make the deficit look smaller.

Pretty amazing the libertarian rabid right has been touting that ss/med=deficit for so long most of the country doesn't know the difference. They will be able to slash the programs and convince the low information voters it's a sacrifice they need to make to lower the deficit. While the real goal is pocketing the employer contribution to fica and the medicare supplemental tax. The ability of the conservative/libertarian propaganda machine to convince people living paycheck to paycheck they need to sacrifice for the good of the ultra wealthy is awesome. Orwell nailed it in 1984.

WarrenTheApe says

stronger-than-expected is Orwellian CBO Deep State Speak for "we just got caught deliberately trying to sabotage the tax cuts from passing with our biased analysis"

Wow, a whole 7% off of estimates. That's never happened before, well actually it's happened a lot but don't let pesky facts get in the way of a good fairy tale.. Amazing how that deep state speak works.

WarrenTheApe says

"Those payments were mostly related to economic activity in 2017

Moslty from 2017? Before the tax cut passed? Don't let pesky facts get in the way of a good fairy tale. Amazing how that deep state speak works.

bob2356 says

Social security and most of medicare

Military has to be cut. That is is the worst welfare program in the history of humanity, and is the YUUGEST par of discretionary spending. Nothing else comes remotely close.


Assuming that SS and labor pays for itself, the only place to cut in discretionary would be medicare and health - there is no reason to have $25 aspirins at hospitals.

Yes indeed, Federal Tax revenues exceeding federal spending for the month of April is quite the miracle.

The article said they're still negative (deficit) for the year 2018 to date.

I guess from a political standpoint it is somewhat brilliant that we won't know until after the 2018 elections just how much of a deficit the tax cuts cause.

Using those pie charts I concluded that Social Security and Medicare needed to be cut the most.

zzyzzx says

Using those pie charts I concluded that Social Security and Medicare needed to be cut the most.

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SS pays for itself, so it should not be cut unless SS taxes are cut:

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v75n1/v75n1p1-text.html#chart1

I tend to give Presidents a 2-year pass... I even did that for Obama. I appreciate Trump's spirit in trying to solve the problem by simply growing the pie, and I think his strategy could actually work. I can understand the military spending boost in the aspect of leverage to close issues with carrying cost e.g. North Korea. Time will only tell if things will work as expected (not "hoped" for like Obummer).

WarrenTheApe says

bob2356 says

WarrenTheApe says

They would have to slash social security and medicare, and sideline the military, making our oldsters die hungry and ceding military control of the world in order get our budget into the red with our current tax rates.

Love how bob2356 totally invents shit up and claims I said it for his bogus strawman arguments?

Patrick's quoting says it's your post although the comment is now somehow magically under a different name. If you have a beef take it up with patrick. Either his quoting has a bug or someone played games with some of their dozens of user names and jerked around with their comment by moving it from one user name to another. .

BTW in the red means running a deficit not balanced or surplus. The budget is in the red now Traditionally from an accounting perspective, your income statement shows whether a business is in the green, black or red. Green means you have an operating profit, black means you are around break-even and red means you don't have enough revenue to meet operating expenses.. Someone that had actually run a business rather than just claiming to have run a business would know that..

Ok work your usual math magic and show how cutting social security would help balance the budget. (putting it into the black) other than making more money from fica available to borrow. Key word borrow. As in debt. As in "into the red".

Republicans grow pie, Democrats shrink it and then divide it instead.

Feux Follets says

They won't. Things rarely if ever go as expected.

They did not go as expected when GWBush cut the taxes - instead, deficit ballooned. Now will be the same, as "this time is different" is stupid not only re. housing, but also with respect to government.

FortWayne says

Republicans grow pie, Democrats shrink it and then divide it instead.

Or, Democrats run up budget deficit to pay for loafers while introducing asinine regulations on business and choking free enterprise, while Republicans go to war while cutting taxes and putting war expenses on nation's credit card. Both sides run up deficit and are stupid in this respect.

There is Truth in this. But Reaganomics worked, while everything else didn’t.

drB6 says

FortWayne says

Republicans grow pie, Democrats shrink it and then divide it instead.

Or, Democrats run up budget deficit to pay for loafers while introducing asinine regulations on business and choking free enterprise, while Republicans go to war while cutting taxes and putting war expenses on nation's credit card. Both sides run up deficit and are stupid in this respect.

zzyzzx says

Using those pie charts I concluded that Social Security and Medicare needed to be cut the most.

What kind of republican are you ? Don't you know that it's always taxes that need to be cut the most ? Only after you sufficiently cut taxes and drive the deficit up to a high enough level will you be able to make the argument that the benefits the people paid in to such as social security and medicare, which were actually spent in real time as if they were tax revenues (making the tax cuts possible), only then can you make that argument with enough weight that it can happen.

Repeat after me. Screw all those people that don't have as much as I do. Take their luxurious social security and medicare benefits away from them, and make them suffer. Heeeheeeeheeeehaaaaahaaaaahaaaaa !!

marcus says

zzyzzx says

Using those pie charts I concluded that Social Security and Medicare needed to be cut the most.

What kind of republican are you ? Don't you know that it's always taxes that need to be cut the most ?

He's right Zzyzzx. Your punishment....buy all the Republicans here a beer and make Marcus pay the bill. Heeeheeeeheeeehaaaaahaaaaahaaaaa !!