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
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks