December Budget Deficit Sets Record

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(01-13) 15:55 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high for the month of December, and the red ink for the first three months of the current budget year is rising at a more rapid pace than last year's record clip.

The massive tide of red ink, reflecting the continued fallout from a deep recession and a severe financial crisis, highlights the challenge facing President Barack Obama as he pledges to get control of runaway deficits.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the deficit last month totaled $91.85 billion, the largest December deficit on record. The figure was in line with economists' expectations.

For the first three months of the current budget year, which began on Oct. 1, the deficit totaled $388.51 billion, 16.8 percent higher than the $332.49 billion imbalance recorded during the same period a year ago.

Last year's deficit surged to $1.42 trillion, more than three times the record of the previous year, an imbalance of $454.8 billion set in 2008.

The Obama administration is projecting that this year's deficit will climb even higher to $1.5 trillion, which would be 5.6 percent higher than the 2009 deficit. That figure will be revised when the president sends his new budget to Congress in early February.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/13/national/w110135S98.DTL

[indepat]

1. Deficits will spiral wildly upward as long as perpetual wars are being fought,

the Administration and the Congress are unwilling to subject the highest income-earners with nearly as high a marginal tax rate as they gladly, willingly, and enthusiastically strap on much of the middle class, and the economy, the unemployed, and main street are given the short shrift as the banksters and Wall Street fraudsters continue to be lavished with taxpayer largess and allowed to largely operate in the manner that got us here in the first place. :P

[inna]

2. exactly.

Income and wealth inequality is at its highest EVER, and growing. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7387970

It's way past time to start taxing the rich at reasonable rates, before we become a full-blown Neo-feudal state.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

3. Where is the threshold? The tipping point?

Have we crossed into the abyss already?

Can we all run up our own debt in a comparative manner and print our own money to make payments?

Can't say I'm too optimistic about the coming months and years...

[Festivito]

4. Bush did his borrowing in Sep, Oct, Nov, so M$M looks at Dec.

...and says looky at December. Obama borrowed more in Dec than Bush did in Dec. If you look at Sep-Nov, then Bush borrowed more than Obama.

But, that would not make a story that keeps those advertising dollars rolling in from our fewer and fewer large companies.