Daily Deficit

The US Daily Deficit for Thursday 1/8/2015 was $4.5B bringing the January 2015 deficit through 8 days to $27B.

As is standard practice, I have attempted to sync up the current year with the prior year based on day of the week, which drives many, but not all of the revenue and payment cycles. So the charts above compare 2015 through Thursday 1/8 to 2014 through Thursday 1/9. Because of this, 2014 has an extra business day, a difference it will retain for the rest of the month.

Revenues through 8 days stand at $78B, $8B under 2014….we can probably chalk this up to one less business day. Assuming revenue continues to grow at 5%+ into 2015, we should see this shrink over the coming week and go positive, hitting +15B to+20B by the end of the month.

Outlays are at  $105B, $18B under 2014. This can be chalked up to the extra business day, and the timing of SS payments this month. SS payments of about $13B go out the 2-4 Wednesday of the month…in 2014, the second Wednesday was 1/8, in 2015 the second Wednesday is 1/14. These won’t sync back up until the end of the month, so just keep that $13B in the back of your mind.

Now for my January forecast. December didn’t turn out so well….my optimistic forecast of a $35B surplus missed the actual $14B surplus by $21B. January is typically a low deficit month as tax revenues pick up while tax refunds don’t really kick off until early February. I’m going to throw my dart at a moderate $20B deficit to kick off the year. Stay tuned…

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Wednesday 12/31/2014 was $3.0B bringing the December Surplus to $14B and the full year 2014 deficit to $607B…a $102B  improvement over 2013’s $709B cash deficit.

I’ll have more next week, but for the year, revenues were up 5.2% and outlays were up 1.6%. 2014 was the 5th straight year of deficit reduction, though at $600B….it’s clearly still nothing to brag about.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 12/29/2014 was $14.7B bringing the December 2014 Surplus through 29 days to $17B with just two days remaining.

Revenues are more or less back in sync after being disrupted by the holiday timing. They sit at +10%, or $29B, which should be enough to hold onto 2014’s lead over 2013 even as 12/31 Fannie/Freddie payments fall way short of last year. The last two days of the year look to be quite volatile, so I hesitate to guess, but that is what you guys pay me for, so my feeling is that my initial forecast of a $35B surplus is going to be a bit optimistic. Anything is always possible, but tacking on another $18B of surplus in the next two days seems like a bit of a stretch. I’d guess we actually stay fairly close to where we are as elevated revenues should be offset by increased outlays….so maybe only a $10-$20B surplus for the month when all is said and done.

Of course that puts the annual cash deficit at right about $600B for the year, which makes the math easy….perhaps a $130B YOY improvement (**1/2/2015 edit…math fail…please ignore this…should have used 2013 Final at $709B…not FY 2013 through 364 days) vs 2013….down quite a bit from 2013’s nearly $400B improvement on tax increases and the corporate raid of Fannie/Freddie… Still, improvement is improvement…we’ll take it.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Wednesday 12/24/2014 was $5.2B bringing the December 2014 Surplus through 24 days to $2B with 4 business days remaining.

Revenues continue to impress and while they are distorted a bit by the timing of the holiday…as of 12/24 sit at +20% vs 2013 with 4 business days remaining in both 2013 and 2014. This will likely come down a bit by the end of the month due to reduced YOY Fannie/Freddie payments, but an impressive revenue month is still pretty much a done deal. Of course….outlays are up primarily due to timing at +24%. The YTD charts paints a bit different picture…revenues up 6.4%, outlays up 1.6%. Lets do it again in 2015… shall we??

I haven’t done a bottoms up forecast for 2015, but my preliminary thoughts are that outlays will continue trending up, probably breaking through +2% YOY. Revenue is highly unpredictable, but I would imagine strong growth to continue at least through the April tax season….after that 5% or so seems like a safe bet for now.

The US Daily Surplus for 12/16/2014 was $7.1B bringing the December 2014 surplus to $11B through 16 days.

Revenues continued to pour in…this time withheld tax deposits….as if in response to my note yesterday that they were looking low…. gained $8B…I suppose some timing quirk I am unaware of, bringing them to $+4B for the month. Total revenues are up $25B YOY, good for a 13% improvement, mostly due to corporate taxes which are up 35%. Outlays were off $1B and stand at $+43B YOY for the month. Altogether…it’s looking like a better month than expected on strong revenues.

In all the excitement of yesterdays flood of corporate taxes…I forgot to mention a milestone:

Can you spot it? Debt outstanding passed $18 Trillion yesterday **(WHOOPS!! looks like this actually happened 11/28 while I was taking a nap 🙁 )…..yawn…. For the record….Total Public debt is up $767B in the last 12 months….Debt held by the public is up $637B. Of course…if you look at the Monthly Treasury Statement through November….the Trailing 12 month deficit is only $436B. One word…shady…..just sayin’ 🙂