Missing Treasury dollars? What gives?

[bobbyboucher]

After viewing a LBN article about how Treasury Sec John Snow says Congress needs to raise the debt limit soon, from $7.4 trillion to who knows what, or else we can't pay our bills, I got to cyferin'. Here is a link to that article:

http://www.modbee.com/24hour/politics/story/1537444p-9081052c.html

Then another poster directed me to another article from 2/5/03, which is strikingly similiar except that Treasury wants the Congress to raise the debt limit above the then current $6.4 trillion level. This article also states that way back in June 2002, a whopping seven months prior, Congress had to raise the limit from $5.95 trillion to the $6.4 trillion, a modest increase of $450 billion. Here is that article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/20/politics/main541338.shtml

So unless I cannot add, and please help me out with that, this says that we have borrowed nearly $1.45 trillion in just over 2 (two) years. Can that be right? Think about that. I know we have been running huge deficits, but does this add up?

[NMDemDist2]

1. oh yeah, we are borrowing millions every day!

i can believe it...

[bobbyboucher]

2. But what about Bush's deficits, They don't total nearly that.

What have the annual shortfalls been since Bush came into office?

[Walt Starr]

12. Check you math, it's millions per hour

over a billion a day.

[bobbyboucher]

19. Truly mind-boggling, but this year's budget deficit is

estimated to be around $455 billion, I just see some many missing billions.

I know I must not be hip to the accounting of it all, but if we borrowed it, we got it somewhere, or rather, had it somewhere.

[bobbyboucher]

3. Can anyone help? This borrowing doesn't add up.

Help me with this. How can we have borrowed 1.45 trill between 6/02 and 8/04? What the fuck? That $669 BIL per year. I don't remeber any deficits that huge, does anyone else.

Maybe it is just the accounting zaniness between fiscal years, but come on.

[bobbyboucher]

4. I even gave this thread a hysterical title, and still little attention.

:kick:

[Old and In the Way]

10. There is no accountability with this administration....none.

All I can figure is that the taxcuts, lax IRS collections, and lack of revenue are creating windfall losses in our federal balance sheets.

When Kerry/Edwards take over, they'll find nothing in the cupboard. That really pisses me off....Bush had a huge surplus to cushion 9/11....what will the government do if there's another attack?

If I was Kerry/Edwards, I'd take the opportunity to restructure the Defense Department. We can't afford a $400BB/year military if we are running $500BB deficits. Blame it on Bush and if the Republicans complain, raise the taxes on the top 5% that can afford to pay. The world will be better off with a Defense budget designed for defense instead of offense.

[bobbyboucher]

17. No doubt about all that.

I am still having trouble with the amount that is reported to be the annual deficit, and the reason we are borrowing so much more than that. It seems like we are borrowing twice as much as is being reported.

Now someone brought up something about Social Security, but I thought that SS was in the black so it couldn't be the drain. Maybe the SS surplus is spent and then is replaced by borrowing? But I thought there was no lock box to replenish through borrowing. Is that the case, if so then the deficits are truly much higher that what is being stated.

[bobbyboucher]

5. What a bunch of Lame arses.

No wonder Bush can get away with running huge deficits and no one seems to care. Even here at the DU, not even two replies to some glaring inconsistencies in the accounting of our tax dollars.

What a bunch of clowns.

[NMDemDist2]

6. good grief chill man

what isn't shown on the budget is social security payments and quite a few other "mandated programs"

[bobbyboucher]

8. Just kidding while I'm kicking,

don't worry. I thought that SS still pays for itself. Is there a huge shortfall in Madicare?

I just think that this seems to be flying under the radar. obviously we have borrowed that much, but why?

[tkmorris]

11. Wait wait...........

Did you just call all DU'ers a "bunch of clowns" because you didn't get enough responses to your thread?

To answer your question though, in a way at least, it all depends on how you look at it. You are looking at it as if there are two columns, one being revenue plus borrowed money and the other being expenditures. They don't figure it that way. Perhaps they should, but they don't.

For example, the costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan war don't usually get counted toward the budget numbers. There are many other examples of this sort of creative accounting and my assumption is that most DU'ers know that, which is why they aren't as shocked as you that the numbers you cite don't balance.,

[bobbyboucher]

13. Just getting your attention, but I still can't figure

the 1.45 tril. Why did we borrow that much?

[King of New Orleans]

7. There's a difference between the deficit and the debt

What is the difference between the debt and the deficit?

The deficit is the fiscal year difference between what the Government takes in from taxes and other revenues, called receipts, and the amount of money the Government spends, called outlays. The items included in the deficit are considered either on-budget or off-budget. (The off-budget items are typically comprised of the two Social Security trust funds, old-age and survivors insurance and disability insurance, and the Postal-Service fund.) Generally, on-budget outlays tend to exceed on-budget receipts, while off-budget receipts tend to exceed off-budget outlays.

You can think of the total debt as accumulated deficits plus accumulated off-budget surpluses. The on-budget deficits require the Treasury to borrow money to raise cash needed to keep the Government operating. We borrow the money by selling Treasury securities like T-bills, notes, bonds and savings bonds to the public. Additionally, the Government Trust Funds are required by law to invest accumulated surpluses in Treasury securities. The Treasury securities issued to the public and to the Government Trust Funds (Intragovernmental Holdings) then become part of the total debt. For information concerning the deficit, visit the Financial Management Service website to view the Monthly Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government.

The Above is from the U.S. Treasury

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdfaq.htm#opdfaq32

Social Security runs a large surplus, a result of the 1983 SS Reform Act, which was inteded to enable Social Security to build a large surplus so that it could handle the influx of retirees when the baby boom generation they could actually get paid benefits.

For this year the on-budget deficit will be around 610-620 Billion dollars (that the part of the budget GeeW and Congress gets to play with) Social Security will run about a $160 surplus (GeeW hasn't been allowed to screw that up--yet). The Deficit is the $620 Billion minus the $160 Billion SS surplus or about $460 Billion. The Debt includes the $160 Billion because that money is conidered to be "owed" the SS fund. So the National Debt will increase $620 Billion dollars this year.

[bobbyboucher]

9. Derrrrrrrrrr.

Just explain why we borrowed $1.45 Trillion in the past 25 months.

Especially if SS is solvent.

[NMDemDist2]

14. we also have interest we pay on the debt we already carry

the numbers don't clear up for 2-3 years AFTER the close of the fiscal year

altho Clinton had us on the right track we hadn't paid off the debt from the Raygun years...

[bobbyboucher]

16. I thought service to the debt was part of each years' budget,

we cannot avoid paying, are we avoiding accounting for it?

[bobbyboucher]

15. I take back the drrrr, that was uncalledfor.

But I still am at a loss here, sorry for being a simpleton, but I might need it spelled out for me. You seem to have some grasp of it, so why again 1.45?

[bobbyboucher]

18. What are Bush's deficits for each fiscal year that he

has been in the WH? I think he is responsible for fiscal year '02,'03, '04, and the coming '05. The year ending this September 30 is it, was just estimated to be $455 billion. What was last years and fiscal year '02?

[w4rma]

20. The GOP leadership is insane and they are having a party w/ our taxes (nt)

[bobbyboucher]

21. Some party.

:kick:

[htuttle]

22. I think there might actually be spending that's considered 'off budget'

I'm thinking of the several supplementary spending bills that Bush pushed through Congress for his wars. There was one for $187 billion, and there was one other for about half that, that I remember. The budget defict would then be only what the actual budget was short. (?)

I know that's not how you could do accounting for any business, but it's not a business -- it's the government. They sort of make their own accounting rules, within whatever the foreign exchange markets are willing to put up with.

:shrug:

[bobbyboucher]

23. That would explain the differences

between what is reported as the budget shortfall and what we are borrowing. But that sucks. I mean, when is this accounted for? Man, this is just theft, plain and simple.

I wonder if you went back and did the same thing during Reagan and Bush I, and added up the reported deficits per fiscal year, and then compared them with the amount of money that the government borrowed. I just bet that there is a huge discrepancy.

I have a feeling that I am missing something, but if I am, I am fairly certain it has nothing to do with GAAP.

[soothsayer]

24. Here's a good related article

The United States government has operated a secret budgeting and spending program for decades outside the framework of the American Constitution. The institutional and political roots of this system of clandestine finance reach back to at least a century. The turn of the 19th and 20th centuries saw the consolidation of American industry and banking under the control of a restrictive cartel that for all practical purposes assumed control of the economy. The great magnates of American industry and finance in the late nineteenth century were superb practitioners of covert operations. Witness to this fact are the institutions set up during the twentieth century through which their descendants maintain control.

This paper is a summary of the structure of the American political economy which fits the facts better than the official model.
<snip>

Much more (NOT crackpot stuff!) One of the authors: Catherine Austin Fitts is .... a former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration, and President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.

http://www.sandersresearch.com/Sanders/NewsManager/ShowNewsGen.aspx?NewsID=667