Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 12/10/2013 was $5.2B pushing the December 2013 cash deficit through 10 days to $34B.

Revenue lost $1B of ground, but so did outlays, so we are still pretty much even compared to 2012. It is curious that 10 days into December….in a year with surging revenues…we are still down a bit when we would typically be expecting 10% revenue growth…If we are still flat after next week….it would definitely be time to get concerned. For now though…it’s just interesting. A strong revenue push over the next week could make this weak start a distant memory…

So…looking at the full year…344 days into 2013 by my count…Revenues are up 13.82% at +$348B. Looking at this data set which goes back to 2006, the only year that comes close to this level of revenue growth is 2011 at 9.46%, with everything else under 5% down to -9.7% in 2009.

Compare that to outlays, which are down $53B…or -1.45%….an actual small reduction, but we’ll take it.

Looking forward (2014+), we can probably count on outlays continuing to grow at low single digit rates…say 1-3%, with a pretty high confidence level (absent a recession and “stimulus ect…). Revenues, on the other hand, are the wildcard and are the critical variable. If they continue to grow at 10%+…mathematically we would be in pretty damn good shape by the end of the decade. That kind of growth is possible in spurts, but stringing  more than a few together is highly unlikely. However…even something lower….like 5-6% YOY growth  would be a huge help…delaying the inevitable perhaps out to the end of the decade….maybe. If, however…we can only manage low single digit growth in federal revenues…the situation starts to deteriorate fast…we could get back to the $1T annual deficit level again by 2018 and never look back. If we actually got another recession somewhere in the mix that drove revenues down and spiked outlays….it could get real ugly(er??) in a heartbeat.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 12/9/2013 was $7.0B pulling the December 2013 cash deficit through 9 days down to $28B.

Revenues advanced about $4B today pulling even with 2012 thanks to a $2.5B cash infusion from “Justice Department Programs”. Hmmm… I wonder if this related to any of the billion dollar fines I keep reading about…maybe one of the banks actually paid up?? Just a guess…

With about a quarter of the month gone…2013 and 2012 are all tied up… both revenues and outlays are flat. We’ll likely see about $10-15B of deficits between Tuesday and Thursday before heavy tax revenues start flowing in Friday…pushing the deficit to surplus by next Monday.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 12/6/2013 was $3.8B nudging the December 2013 cash deficit through 6 days to $35B…$5B over 2012 through the same time frame.

Revenues are still down a bit and cost are still up a little…but It’s still too early to really worry about it. We have a few more days before things really start heating up. We’ll probably see ~$100B of revenues between Friday 12/13 and early next week as corporate taxes and other tax payments are paid….dwarfing the activity we’ve seen to date. Until then…just stay tuned.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Wednesday 12/4/2013 was $3.8B bringing the December 2013 cash deficit through 4 days to $27B…$6B over where 2012 was at this point.

No real action to note yesterday…revenues gained a bit over 2012 and outlays were down about $1B.  Expect moderate surpluses and deficits through next week followed by a surge in revenues between 12/13 and 12/16.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 12/3/2013 was $30.5B led by $24B of Social Security payments. Adding yesterday’s unreported $0.2B deficit gets us to ~$31B for the month.

Timing wise…I am syncing 2012 and 2013 based on business days…so we are comparing 2 business days of 2013 (12/1 to 12/3) to 2 business days of 2012 (12/1 to 12/4). This should work well until the end of the month…where 2013 picks up one extra business day vs 2012…. this should result in a small revenue bump offset by a small increase in outlays….all else equal.

So two days in…which admittedly is too early to spot trends…we see that revenues are down $4B…a little surprising, but not concerning yet. Outlays are up….thanks in part to a $5.8B interest payment yesterday….in 2012 this same payment went out 11/30.

So at $31B…the deficit should continue to grow moderately over the next week to ~50B or so. Then…tax revenues should start pouring in around the 15th (a weekend)…probably pushing us to a surplus by Monday 12/16….which we would expect to stick for the remainder of the month.