[Vision2020] Federal Deficit for February Largest in History--Total debt now $22 trillion

[Nicholas Gier]

Please note Trump scolding Obama about the budget deficit. Our own Sen.
Crapo used to make this his primary focus.

The monthly deficit has now climbed to 5.1 percent of GDP in contrast to
the 3.8 percent at the end of Obama's two terms.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/record-february-budget-deficit-trump_n_5c96cc00e4b01ebeef103d01?ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__032519

February’s federal budget deficit
<https://www.huffpost.com/impact/topic/deficit> was the largest on record,
according to figures released by the Treasury Department
<https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0219.pdf> on
Friday. President Donald Trump
<https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump> promised during his
campaign that he would balance the budget in eight years
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-turmoil-or-triumph-donald-trump-stands-alone/2016/04/02/8c0619b6-f8d6-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html?postshare=6561459637742585&utm_term=.0bec99dd4391>
.

The total debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time ever in February — $2
trillion higher
<https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-national-debt-deficit-compared-to-obama-bush-clinton-2019-2>
than when Trump took office.

<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/230760366232195072>

The deficits under @BarackObama <https://twitter.com/BarackObama> are the
highest in America's history. Why is he bankrupting our country?
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=230760366232195072>
<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>

Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump>
<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/148876610811072513>

With a record deficit and $15 trillion in debt, @BarackObama
<https://twitter.com/BarackObama> is spending $4 million of our money on
his Hawaii vacation. Just plain wrong.
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>The massive
shortfall is being attributed to a
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=148876610811072513>20 percent
drop in corporate revenue and increased federal spending
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-22/u-s-posts-largest-monthly-budget-deficit-on-record-in-february>.
The Trump administration slashed corporate taxes in his new 2017 tax law
from 35 percent to 21 percent. Trump’s tax-cut package cost the government
$1.5 trillion.

“When you pass the most irresponsible tax cut
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-government-ran-a-544-billion-deficit-over-the-first-5-months-of-the-fiscal-year/2019/03/22/932d3438-4cc8-11e9-9663-00ac73f49662_story.html?utm_term=.c15a772d8ab3>
followed by the most irresponsible spending increase, unsurprisingly it
leads to the largest deficit numbers,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told The Washington Post.
“Predictably, that’s exactly where we landed.”

The deficit for the first five months of the federal fiscal year is $544.2
billion, up nearly 40 percent from the same period the previous year,
according to Treasury figures.

The budget gap was $234 billion in February alone, which surpassed the
earlier monthly record
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-22/u-s-posts-largest-monthly-budget-deficit-on-record-in-february>
of $231.7 billion seven years ago, according to an analysis of data by
Bloomberg.

Total spending was $401 billion in February
<https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-budget-deficit-widens-to-234-billion-in-february-2019-03-22>
while the government took in just $167 billion.

Corporations have so far this fiscal year paid $59.2 billion in taxes,
compared to $87.4 billion at this point ini 2017 before Trump’s tax law was
enacted.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Congress last month that the
federal debt matters — it’s growing faster than the gross domestic product
<https://www.axios.com/jerome-powell-federal-reserve-national-debt-f8a536df-4429-414f-9668-92ad5d05274d.html>—and
the nation must address the issue.

Money owed is eating up an increasing share of the GDP. The budget
deficit’s share of the GDP is expected to increase to 5.1 percent this
year, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, according to projections from the
White House Office of Management and Budget.

At this rate, the national debt could be on track to hit 93 percent of GDP
in a decade.
<http://www.crfb.org/blogs/debt-could-be-20-percent-gdp-higher-presidents-budget-claims>

-- 
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they
shall never sit in.

-Greek proverb

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not in
lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without
guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your own
understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.

--Immanuel Kant
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