The Deficit

Throughout the Obama years, I roundly criticized Barack Obama and the Democrats for their profligate spending. Whenever any attempt was made to rein in the budget or cut programs, you'd think that the world was coming to an end. Children would be starved and grandmas would be thrown out of their wheelchairs and onto the curb. Even tiny cuts (e.g., the sequester) were deemed "catastrophic." A small cut in military budgets would "put our nation at risk." Cuts in social programs would "endanger the most vulnerable." It's all B.S., but that's what the denizens of the swamp (both Dem and GOP) do when spending is threatened. Spending consolidates their power and influence, so spend they must.

Today it was announced that federal spending has set a new record, along with the deficit. It looks like Donald Trump is no different than the administrations that preceded him where spending and deficits are concerned. He deserves to be roundly criticized for it.

Terrence Jeffrey reports:

The federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 (for the numerically imparied—that's 3.35 trillion dollars or 3,350 billion dollars) in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

Prior to this fiscal year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the October-through-June period was in fiscal 2018, when the Treasury doled out $3,199,795,700,000 in constant June 2019 dollars. Before last year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the first nine months of the fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when it spent $3,176,577,910,000.

Fiscal 2009 was the year that President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his economic stimulus plan.

Total federal tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 hit $2,608,855,000,000. That was more than the $2,582,688,760,000 in total tax revenue (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first nine months of fiscal 2018, but less than the record $2,626,410,840,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in total tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2015.

The difference between the $2,608,855,000,000 in total taxes collected in the first nine months of this fiscal year and the record spending of $3,355,970,000,000 left the government with a deficit of $747,115,000,000.

Trump, like his predecessor, Obama, deserves nothing but criticism for uncontrolled and irresponsible spending across the federal budget. Even if waste and abuse accounts for only 10 percent of spending (and that's a VERY conservative estimate), Trump, along with the entire Congress has thrown away $355 billion dollars over the past nine months. That's $355 billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Even more depressing, there is no way to eliminate waste and abuse. The only viable approach is to spend less, resulting in proportionally less waste and abuse. Of course, that won't happen, until we run out of other people's money.