U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

Source: Reuters

Reuters) - The United States posted an $82.69 billion deficit in April, nearly four times the $20.91 billion shortfall registered in April 2009 and the largest on record for that month, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the $40-billion deficit that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast and was striking since April marks the filing deadline for individual income taxes that are the main source of government revenue.

Department officials said that in prior years, there was a surplus during April in 43 out of the past 56 years.

The government has now posted 19 consecutive monthly budget deficits, the longest string of shortfalls on record.


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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B53W20100512

ug.

April's tax deficit of $83 billion was the highest April deficit on record. America is now more bankrupt than ever. Income was $245.3 billion, 8% below the total recorded last April. Spending was $328.0 billion, up 14% year-over-year. A year ago in April the deficit was $20.9 billion. And here is the data: tax receipts down 7.9% YoY, Individual Income Tax down 21.5% YoY, and more importantly, spending: Total spending up 14.2%, National defense up 17%, Medicare up 39.4%, Social Security up 4.2% and General Government up 5.6%. At least interest payments were down 9.5%.

Party on dudes, money is free. We don't need to manufacture anything but weapons systems. Everyone can work in the public sector.

I think more taxes on small business will shore up the leaking dam.

people don't realize that if you pair all your debts and unfunded obligations (mortgages, car loans, student loans, retirement funds) that they would be mind boggled at the amount of money they owe. It's not about the amount of debt, its about what the debt is on and how you finance it. Debt on capital expenses such as car, education, housing is perfectly fine but if you are taking loans out to pay for yearly operating expenses then you are in trouble

so that begs the question, why is it so bad if the government does the same thing? Why should we expect our government to pay for all expenses out of pocket when we can't even do it ourselves. The federal budget should be seperated into two main catagories- Capital and Operating. use tax revenue to fund operating and what ever is left over can go to the capital catagory as use as a down payment. Capital expenses never really need to be paid in full all at once and can be paid for over the lifetime of that expense. How many people do you know that paid for their house in the last 10 years out of pocket?

Is the equivalent of someone with a 30K salary buying a 750K house. Of course, the person buying the house can't just print their own money.

though the media loves playing the debt crisis thing, the truth is that we can handle it with a little bit of tweaking. such tweaking would be to repeal the bush tax cuts and get people employed again. Remember before this whole recession, the U.S. was on a sustainable fiscal path- even though we were incuring debt (our deficit spending was less than our increase in GDP so in fact our national debt as a percentage of GDP stayed stable).

budgets...the percentage of our budget that we spend on defense is equal to that of social security and medicare/medicaid individually.

BTW if you are about to compare us to western european nations remember that when it comes to defense, they basically just leach off the american taxpayer. Our world-wide defense positioning allows most of western europe to have minimal defense spending. The best example is to look at our navy compared with other navies and understanding that freedom of the seas is overwhelming protected by a U.S. naval presence.

and pay squat to the troops

the military industrial complex runs this country..these are corporate occupations done for multinational corporations to secure oil contracts and secure lands and resources..

WE are the bad guys. we are going BROKE being the bad guys.

"Deficits don't matter".

but they arent a huge problem always. It depends what you are using debt to finance. Debt financing capital projects: okay. Debt financing operating expense: bad

It's not really possible but I appreciate your effort.

lol

:)

Quoting Reagan.

:)

That's the rationale that will keep us all sane.

As soon as the media gets the Republicans back in power, we will never hear about deficits again.