copernicus

The US Cash Deficit for February 2016 came in at $226B, topping last February’s $211B deficit and wiping out the January surplus leaving 2016 through 2 months with a 174B deficit.

Revenue:

Revenues were up$26B, good for +21% YOY vs 2015….not bad, but for the most part we can thank leap year and February tax refunds. I treat refunds as negative revenue rather than an outlay, so the $125B of refunds that went out to individuals in February pulled down total revenues to $149B, while an average month is closer to $300B. Leap year gave 2016 an extra day vs 2016, and Monday 2/29/2016 did not dissapoint, with a solid $23B of extra revenue. Refunds were more or less in line with last year, but having the small revenue base made the +21% possible.  With only 2 months. this also pulled the YTD up to +10%. So yes…the numbers look good, but there is a good chance it is all timing and one offs….and that the reality is we are still in the ballpark of +3%….we should have a much better idea by the end of April.

Outlays:

For the month, outlays were up$40B but that is primarily just last month’s timing rolling off. For the year, we are still under 2015, but that is due to the January 2016 payments that went out in December 2015, permanently pushing 2015 outlays up and 2016 down by ~$30B-$40B. We look to be burning through that benefit at a rate consistent with my estimate of ~+3% growth for the year, but it will take a few more months for that trend to solidify(if it exists).

Deficit:

Thanks to timing and leap year, the deficit is $65B under where it was last year through 2 months. Even though it doesn’t look particularly solid at this point, improvement is improvement…we’ll gladly take it….just don’t get your hopes up yet.

Summary:

Through 2 months, the headline numbers look pretty good, but I am a bit worried about revenues…specifically federal tax deposits which are the largest consistent revenue source in the budget. Through 2/28…they were up just 0.2% for the year compared to +4% last year. Thanks to a big leap day, the year is at +6%, but I’m not sure it will last long. If baseline revenue growth is only 0.2%….it could mean trouble is brewing.

Looking forward, refund season marches on, so we will probably have a March deficit in excess of $60B before hitting April, which will likely have a surplus in the $150-$200B range.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Wednesday 2/24/2016 was $22B, bringing the February cash deficit to $217B with 3 business days remaining in the month.

So far it looks like a pretty normal February…refunds are pouring out and the deficit is headed toward $200B+. We still have timing affecting outlays, though some of this will equalize at the end of the month.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for January 2016 came in at $52B beating January 2015’s $28B deficit by a whopping $80B. However, don’t break out the party hats just yet…There were 3 large timing events that accounted for most of the beat.

Revenues:

At first glance, revenues were up $18B good for a 5.7% YOY gain. Last January about $10B of refunds went out at the end of the month, and since I account for refunds as negative revenue, it reduced reported revenue by that amount. In 2016, those early tax refunds did not go out in January…if we back that benefit out, the YOY gain is $10B lower, good for a 2.5% gain. Still not too shabby considering there was one less business day…my baseline was 3% revenue and spending growth, so no shockers yet. In theory…January’s gain will be offset in February as refunds simply slide right a week or so…assuming everything else stays more or less the same…so look for weak(er) February revenues.

Outlays:

Outlays show an apparent $61B drop…but it turns out it is almost all timing. First up, a lot of payments that would have been due in early January were pulled into December due to the timing of the weekend/holiday. This left January 2016 ~$30 short since this did not happen in 2015. Second, January 2015 had extra cost as payments due in February were pulled forward due to the timing of the weekend…lets call that $30B as well. So at the end of the day, Jan 2015 had $30B of extra cost, and January 2016 is $30B short…causing an apparent $60B delta, when the truth is, everything was more or less the same. I will note that this aside, some cost categories including defense vendors, medicaid, and education were either down or up less than I expected. However, it was just one short, and timing tainted month…I’ll give it a few more before I get excited about any of those misses.

Surplus:

The three timing events noted above combined to give us our first January surplus since 2007….ahhh…the good ‘ol days!! Enjoy it while it lasts…February is refund month so we probably have a $200B+ deficit coming up

Summary:

Even taking into account timing, it was a decent start to 2016. with moderate revenue growth and outlays looking about flat….for now. The next 3 months should be exciting (as far as this topic goes anyway) as refunds pour out, and 2015 taxes pour in. As always….Stay Tuned!!

The US Daily Cash Deficit for December 2015 was $3B bringing the 2015 full year deficit to $539B.

Revenue:

Revenue was an interesting story this month ending up at a solid but unremarkable 3.6% gain. However, Looking at the details, we had withheld taxes at +2.9%, corporate taxes down 9.4%, “other” reciepts down 36.4%, and GSE dividends down 68%, all offset by our good buddies at the Federal Reserve, whose earnings went up from $9.3B last year to $29.3B this year.  Historically, the Federal Reserve makes a cash payment to treasury every Wednesday in the ballpark of $1.5B-$2.0B. Months that have 4 Wednesdays will typically have $7B-$8B of revenues from the Federal Reserve, months with 5 will be closer to $9B. So I was a bit surprised Monday 12/28/2015, when I saw a $19B payment from the Federal Reserve spiking revenue. The recently released Monthly Budget review provides some insight. Apparently the FAST  Act(Fixing Americas Surface Transportation) signed into law in early December has a few revenue provisions including selling oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, and it sounds like forcing the Federal Reserve to pay fewer dividends to it’s member banks and therefore submit more of their surplus to Treasury. I can’t argue with that, though I’m not yet sure what magnitude of increase we can expect going forward.  An extra $20B per month would be $240B annually, which would be a nearly 7% baseline increase for 2016 vs 2015…all else equal. That sounds way too high though, my guess would be that this December $20 payment was a one time catch up or something… we’ll find out over the coming months.

Moving on, without the extra $20B from the Federal Reserve, revenues would have been down, despite having an extra business day, which is never a good sign. October was also negative, so if we see another negative in January it will probably be time to start getting a bit concerned.  For the full year, 2015 Revenues landed at  $3.497 Trillion, up $195B and 5.9%. Not too shabby, even though nearly all of the gains were in the first 4 months, followed by 8 months of mediocrity.

Outlays:

Outlays were up $31B and 9%, primarily on a timing event I missed in my forecasting that pulled $23.4B of SS payments due 1/3/2016 to 12/31/2015 due to the weekend. For the full year, outlays were up $126B and 3.2% vs. 2014. If we back out the timing event, we get a 2.6% YOY gain.

Deficit:

For the full year, we had a $68B improvement in the cash deficit pulling it down from $607B in 2014 to $539B to close out 2015. This marks the sixth year in a row of continuous improvement over 2009’s disastrous $1.611T cash deficit.

Summary:

The top line of a $3B deficit wasn’t terrible, but the key takeaway from December is that revenues look to be in trouble. January will give us a better idea if this is the case, and we should know for sure by the end of tax season in April. For now, I’m going to guess that for 2016, revenues and outlays will both be up ~3%, and the cash deficit will stay in the ballpark of $500B.

The US Cash Deficit for November 2015 ended up at $93B for the month on $221B of revenues and $314B of outlays. This, plus a ~+20B adjustment of YTD deficit due to true up the end of “Extraordinary Measures” (EM) brings the 2015 deficit  to $535B through 11 months. This adjustment is due to the fact that during “EM” I am unable to back into amortized interest until Treasury uncooks their books….in this case for 7 months at ~$3B per month.

Revenue:

Cash revenue was up $11B, or 5%…not bad, but about what we would expect from an extra business day. Federal tax deposits were up 8.2%…which is a solid number….included in that corporate taxes were up nearly 14%. This is consistent with a base line of ~5% and an extra business day. For the year, revenues are up 6.1%…down a little from last month’s 6.3% rate. All together, a solid revenue month, but not solid enough for me to shake a suspicion that baseline revenue growth is slipping below our 5% target which is what we need to offset the growth in outlays and keep the deficit flat around the ~$500B per year mark.

Outlays:

Cash Outlays were up big at first glance….$+30B and 10%. However, the extra business day and timing of interest explains most of that, with our expected increases in SS, Medicare, and Medicaid being offset to some degree by decreases in “Other”….whatever that is. All in, we are still around +3% on outlays for the year…with only one month to go I wouldn’t expect much movement from here even if there are some December surprises.

Deficit:

The November deficit at $93B topped last year by $18B as an increase in revenue was not enough to offset timing of interest payments and an additional business day. For the year, we are now sitting at $535B vs $621B last November and poised to end up under $500B for the year once December’s likely $50B surplus flushes through.

Default Day:

As expected….there was no default… the debt limit was suspended in early November ending 7 months of EM, and pushing the next showdown out to March 15, 2017….likely followed by another 7+ months of “EM” shenanigans.

Summary:

Another okay, but not great month. The first 4 months of 2015 started out with a YOY revenue growth of a little over 10%. Since then, the rate is 3.9%, barely enough to keep the deficit constant with outlays growing at 3%. I’ve been wrong on this before, but it is looking more likely that the 2016 deficit will surpass 2015 ending 6 straight years of improvement. As always…stay tuned!!