The Deficit

Treasury: deficit hits new record in just 3 months
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer
46 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The federal government already has run up a record deficit of $485.2 billion in just the first three months of the current budget year, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.

The deficit is on track to surpass $1 trillion for all of fiscal 2009 and some economists believe it could go much higher.

The deficit for December totaled $83.6 billion, a sharp deterioration from a year ago when the government managed a surplus of $48.3 billion. Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a slightly lower deficit of $83 billion.

All the red ink is occurring because of the massive spending on the $700 billion financial rescue program and a prolonged recession which has depressed tax revenues.

The imbalance from October through December is the highest on record for a first quarter and surpasses the mark for a full budget year of $454.8 billion set last year.

The Congressional Budget Office last week projected that the deficit for this fiscal year will hit $1.2 trillion. But that projection does not include any of the costs from the economic stimulus program that President-elect Barack Obama is hoping Congress will pass in the next few weeks in an effort to keep the current recession from deepening.

The cost of Obama's two-year program is expected to be around $800 billion.

The red ink through December includes $247 billion that has been spent on the $700 billion financial rescue program that Congress passed on Oct. 3 to deal with the most serious financial crisis to hit the country since the 1930s.

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Plus the cost of the Iraq occupation is not even in that, right?

You mean the spending Congress as approved 3 or 4 times...since Democrats gained control and promised to bring the troops home and end the war, the last of which was $162 Billion in June by a 92-6 margin in the Senate?

Would that be the same spending that they traded for a $2/hour mininum raise increase and some extra workers compensation benefits among other things after promising NOT to continue to fund the war without withdrawl timetables?

Yes, that's included in our deficit. It wasn't in the budget that Democrats passed but it is in our deficit.

Is this the point where you tell me it's "that bunches" fault?

No I just wondered.

I guess that's good news then if that is included.

But it is still a lot of money.

And it looks like at least the next couple years will be as bad or probably worse.

The next year alone will likely see it double. We can't afford these stimulus packages but that's not stopping Washington.

The only thing I wonder is if they'll give us access to a good language program so we can learn the Mandarin dialect.