Friday, October 28, 2016

So what was the real Federal deficit in 2016?

The Treasury Department says that the official deficit for Fiscal Year 2016 was $590 Billion.  The Treasury Department also says that Federal debt grew by $1.4 Trillion.  How to explain this?

Simples.  Just like the Fed.Gov lies about the inflation and unemployment rates, it lies about the deficit:
The answer is that Congress uses all kinds of accounting tricks to pretend that money it borrows isn’t part of the deficit...
From the Antiplanner’s point of view, the most important accounting trick is that some spending from borrowed money is regarded as “an investment,” and so isn’t counted in the deficit. This includes student loans and highway and transit spending. In 2016, Congress borrowed $70 billion to pay for highways and transit, yet that isn’t included in the $590 billion deficit.
Someone needs to explain to Congress the difference between consumption spending and investments. Investments are supposed to produce a return. Assuming they are repaid, student loans produce a return. But no one expects that highway or transit spending will ever return money to the Treasury.
I'm just so tired of every single "fact" told to me by the Establishment turning out to be a lie.  And this pretty well sums my feelings up:
Our entire federal government has become a giant Ponzi scheme, and the two parties fighting for control over who will get the last returns from that scheme before it collapses.
What a miserable, contemptible ruling class.

3 comments:

  1. DivemedicOctober 28, 2016 at 3:56 PM

    The government has been doing this for decades. This is why so many claim that Bill Clinton balanced the budget while ignoring that the national debt rose by $1.4 trillion while he was in office. I have blogged on this before.

    http://street-pharmacy.blogspot.com/2016/10/awash-in-red-ink.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. TedOctober 28, 2016 at 7:00 PM

    It's not just the federal government. This kind of "Accounting" is pervasive and extends right down to the small town local level. A total inability to compare this year's budgets to last year's. Using short term funding to finance long term projects. C0-mingling funds. all sorts of things that if we did them in our small businesses we all be in jail.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TedOctober 28, 2016 at 7:10 PM

    ... and this is why you will hear Obama say things as ridiculous as " this year we reduced the deficit".

    You need to understand Obama / Democrat math to understand why he believes this is a true statement. It's right up there in the first Graph...

    The Debt grew by 1.4 trillion.
    The Deficit was only $590 million.
    ...... so simple math says Obama reduced the Deficit by more than $800 millon.

    see Easy Peazee

    ReplyDelete

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