copernicus

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 2/4/2014 was $4.3B following 2/3’s unreported(by me) $8.6B deficit, bringing the February 2014 cash deficit through 4 days to $13B.

Compared to last year at a $64B deficit …we actually look pretty good. However, most of that is related to ~$35B or so of outlays that went out 1/31 in 2014, but went out 2/1 in 2013, creating a $35B swing between months. The other big variance I can see is tax refunds. I account for tax refunds as a reduction in revenue when issued….so on a day where we have $10B of revenue, but $5B of refunds, I would show net revenues at $5B for the day. Curiously, per google, the first day you could file 2012 tax returns last year was 1/30. This year, you could start filing 2013 returns 1/31. However, last year, refunds started pouring out just 2 days later…$4B on 2/1/2013. By Tuesday 2/5/2013, the total was up to $10.5B for the month.

This year, though delayed by only an additional day, we have seen a total of only $41 million….practically nothing. This is giving 2/2014 a $10B YOY boost that will continue to grow until we start seeing tax refunds flow out of federal coffers. For now, we’ll chalk it up to timing and assume it will even itself out by the end of the month.

Speaking of timing, I have taken the liberty of syncing up the YOY based on the day of week as I typically do early in the month. So we are comparing February 2013 through Tuesday 2/5/2013 vs February 2014 through Tuesday 2/4/2014. This will more or less sync up the large revenues and outlays, though as noted above, we are starting out with some large timing issues.

February typically posts the largest deficit of the year due to tax refunds being issued throughout the month. Last year, a total of $114B of refunds were issued to individuals, pulling net revenues down to only $95B….less than 1/4 of the April 2013 revenues of $418B. The February 2013 deficit ended up at $229B. For 2014, my model currently has it pegged at $224B, but if tax refunds continue to fall short…coming in under $200B is a definite possibility.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 1/31/2014 was $36.9B pushing the January 2014 cash deficit for the full month to $24B compared to $32B in January 2013.

Revenue was up 9.6% on the month….a $28B increase. Outlays appeared to be up, but once you back out timing were actually down about $15B. I’m still not convinced it is sustainable, but I can’t deny that at first glance, 2014 is off too a much better start than I imagined it would…..adjusted for timing this would have been a $40-$45B year over year beat. We’ll take it!!

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 1/30/2014 was $5.9B bringing the January 2014 cash surplus with one business day remaining to $12B.

Revenues are now sitting at $+24B….There is a good chance we will build on that some more just due to 1/31/2013 being a Thursday with typically weak revenues vs. 1/31/2014 being a Friday…which generally has moderate revenues. Bottom line…an impressive +10% is definitely within reach.

As noted before, Friday 1/31 will likely have very strong outlays as payments due Saturday 2/1 will instead be made 1/31…and thus pulled into January. This normally happens a few times each year and just glancing back, we can probably expect a $30B deficit….flipping our current $12B surplus into a ~$15B-$20B deficit….if the pattern holds.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Wednesday 1/29/2014 was $5.5B bumping the January 2014 surplus back up to $18B with two business days remaining.

It was another good day on the revenue front thanks in part to a $2B bump from “Federal Reserve Earnings.” Of course….the game here is that the Federal reserve essentially prints their own money, and with it has purchased about $4T worth of securities…including $2.2T of treasury notes (US Federal Debt) and $1.5T of mortgage backed securities. Now, whenever treasury makes a debt payment on a bond owned by the Fed….the Fed turns right back around and sends it back to Treasury. It’s a nice little game I suppose….what could go wrong? In any case…this little game nets the government a cool ~$80B per year of revenues per my math, but who knows how they account for that…negative interest expense?? I suppose it’s whatever they want it to be.

Moving on, Withheld tax deposits are sitting at +8%, taxes not withheld are at +9%, and corporate taxes are up at +16%, though that’s only $1.4B. Total cash revenues (including Fed reserve “earnings”) are at +11%. For comparison, my initial estimate for the month was +7% for total revenues, so there is not doubt, at this point revenues are over performing in my mind….I suppose we should all hope this holds up….unless you are the one paying that additional 11%.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 1/28/2014 was $2.7B pulling the January 2014 Cash Surplus down to $13B with 3 days remaining in the month.

Just for fun…I have unsynced the month…from days of the week to day of month…so we are now comparing 28 days of 2013 to 28 days of 2014….each with 3 (different) business days remaining. It’s not perfect….nothing ever will be, even comparing full months to full months…days of week and business days still have an impact, but with all of the big daily events behind us….I think this is the best way to look at the final 3 days.

So…we can see that revenue is at +21B….and still has some room to grow.

Outlays are at -$15B….which has been confusing me all month. I don’t actually track category spending daily, so I’ll just wait until the month is over, but I am thinking that most of this is in “other”…which is just a field I calculate…whatever’s left…generally a bunch of small items only periodically showing up on the DTS. In January 2013…other added up to $29B….if my hunch is right, it should be down to about $20B or so in 2014…..Good job congress….not!!