March budget deficit shows dramatic decline as Treasury lowers estimate for bailout by $115B

[Cali_Democrat]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/March-budget-deficit-declines-apf-2132515772.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The budget deficit for March showed a dramatic decline as the Obama administration formally entered a lower ultimate cost for the government's $700 billion financial bailout program.

The Treasury Department said the deficit for March totaled $65.4 billion, compared to a $191.6 billion imbalance a year ago. However, $115 billion of that improvement occurred because the administration lowered its estimate of the total costs for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The lower bailout estimate had already been included in the administration's budget which it sent to Congress in February but it had not been included until March in the Treasury Department's monthly accounting of outlays and receipts.

The deficit through the first six months of this budget year totals $716.99 billion, a drop of 8.2 percent from the same period a year ago. However, the administration is projecting that the deficit for all of 2010 will hit an all-time high of $1.56 trillion, up from last year's record of $1.4 trillion.

[Kdillard]

1. That's good. I am hoping that as the summer progresses the unemployment

Numbers will also start to look better. Hopefully there will also be a plan to start paying off our debt.

[Better Today]

2. Lowering an estimate sounds like an accounting trick to me.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. financial institutions repaid the money faster than expected

That's why the estimate was revised.

Why would the administration want to overestimate the cost of the bailouts in the first place? That would be very stupid politically.

There were no "tricks" here as you claim. Just an improving climate that allowed banks to repay faster than expected and therefore the aministration has revised the estimate.

[Better Today]

4. You may be right,. We'll see. I look forward to looking at it all in retrospect

and determining the accuracy then. I've recently read that through all the fed manipulations and TARP that the bank bailout actually cost over $4 Trillion, not the $750+Billion that it has been reported as. So if those numbers are being manipulated to make things look better than they are, well,.... I just don't have any faith in it just now. Accounting tricks are abundant in our system, for GWB it was hiding the cost of war, for Obama, who knows just yet.

And actually if Obama is the chess player all seem to think he is, it would be an astute move to overestimate the cost (which as mentioned above is suspect in and of itself) when first arriving in office in order to give the appearance a year and a half later that the cost was less than anticipated.

Please note, I am not saying you are wrong. I'm just not ready to deem you right. I am suspicious and only time will tell for sure.