US Budget Deficits As Long As The Eye Can See...

The deficit watch is only getting broader… Uncle Sam, via bailouts and other entitlements to keep the economy afloat, spent more than it brought in with a total federal budget deficit of $82.69 billion in April.  The deficit was higher than projected as Dow Jones was calling for a $45 billion budget deficit and Bloomberg was looking for about $40 billion.  To add insult to injury, the deficits are not expected to get any better any time soon.

Today’s report of $82.69 billion compared to a $20.91 billion deficit in April 2009.  The April figure is key because that is the month that many Americans send in their tax checks.  A figure thrown out there by CNBC was an April surplus seen in 43 of the last 56 April periods.

Revenues was $245.27 billion in April, down from $266.21 billion in April 2009. Never fear, spending was up… $327.96 billion versus $287.11 billion in April of 2009.  Individual income-tax receipts in April came to $107.3 billion last month, far under the $136.6 billion brought in during April in 2009.  That is what a worse jobs picture and lower income does for you.  It was only in Q4-2009 that the economy really started to get better, and those official non-Farm payrolls did not start adding jobs until this year.

Revenues so far in 2010 are $1.2 trillion after 7-months, lower than the $1.26 trillion for 2009’s first 7-month period.  For Fiscal-2010, our deficit for the first 7-months was a whopping $799.68 billion.  Oddly enough, that is down from $802.3 billion for the first 7-months of 2009.  By government accounting, you could jokingly say that this means the US taxpayer is up almost $3 billion from a year ago.

Uncle Sam’s 2009 total deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009 and the estimates from the current budgets in 2011 is about a $1.6 trillion deficit on last look.  If economic projections are correct, this brings deficits to above 10% of GDP.  Is the US to be included in the PIIGS now along with Greece?

JON C. OGG