Category

Daily Deficit

Feb 12
0

Daily US Deficit For 2/8/2013

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Deficit for 2/8/2013 was $8.8B, bringing the 8 day total to $85B. This, coincidentally, is about the same amount of annual spending that is supposed to be cut in the dreaded  “Sequester”. That’s right…through 8 days of February, we have already run a deficit larger than the amount sequestration is supposed to save over an entire year. If nothing else, it gives you some scale to how puny these cuts really are compared to what is actually needed. If this tiny little $85B cut is going to hollow out our military, increase unemployment and otherwise wreck havok on our economy, just imagine what’s going to happen when the market takes away our ability to deficit spend. Just something to think about.

Despite the above reality check, we can see that through 8 days, February 2013 is still $31B below February 2012’s deficit through 8 days. unfortunately, about $20B of that is related to delayed 2013 refunds, and about $10B is due to the timing of social security payments, so adjusting for timing, we are on track with last year. Refunds are starting to accelerate…we’ll know in a few weeks if they will catch up to 2012 or get pushed into March.

 2013-02-08B USDD

 

 

 

Feb 09
0

Daily US Deficit For 2/7/2013

By | Daily Deficit
The US Daily Deficit for 2/7/2013 was $10.5B bringing the February cash deficit through 7 days to $77B. With the exception of refunds, everything is pretty much in line with last year. Note that revenue shows as negative today because refunds are higher than tax deposits. Unadjusted revenue is up $3B over last year, so on track to be around $15B or so for the month, which is what we would expect from the recent tax hikes. It’s still too early to start making projections though.
2013-02-07 USDD
Feb 08
0

Daily US Deficit For 2/6/2013

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Deficit for 2/6/2013 was $2.6B bringing the total deficit through 6 days to $66B, $14B under last year, primarily due to refunds running $12B under last year. I’m not sure yet how this is going to all play out. One possibility is that everybody who usually filed in the middle of January simply filed 1/30, and that we will see a spike in about a week and 2013 will start to catch back up to 2012. The other possibility is that there are system processing constraints that will simply push back everything, meaning that February would never catch up…refunds would just get pushed into March, skewing our monthly profiles and making next year that much more difficult to forecast:) There were $53B of refunds issued in the last 8 calendar days of February 2012, so all else equal, that would put the 2013 deficit ending at around “only” $200B. I’m pulling for the IRS’s refund department to power through so my charts don’t get screwed up for the next 2 years!!

2013-02-06 USDD

Feb 07
0

Daily US Deficit For 2/5/2013

By | Daily Deficit
The US Daily Deficit for 2/5/2013 was $9.4B bringing the February total through 5 days to $64B. Refunds are running $8B below last year, so they really haven’t ramped up yet…give that another week or two. Keep in mind that as part of the methodology, tax refunds are subtracted from revenues. So while a typical month may average around $250B per month in revenues, February usually comes in around $80B. It’s not perfect, but it does all work out in the end. Think of it this way…all year long, true revenue is being overstated as people pay in more than they should be (usually). Then, every February-April everyone pays their taxes and trues up their balance…getting a refund if it is due, or writing a check if necesary. That’s just how the cash flows, so it’s how I report it. Anyway…hopefully that preempts a lot of questions on why “revenue” is so low this month. I will also take a look at unadjusted revenues to see how it compares to year ago to see if we can still see that $20B or so increase. Charts are below…don’t read too much into them this early in the month, but the deficit is pretty much in line with last year  and ignoring the delayed refunds, revenue is too.2013-02-05 USDD
Feb 06
0

Daily US Deficit For 2/4/2013

By | Daily Deficit
The US Daily Surplus for 2/1/2013 was $3.4B, bringing the monthly deficit down to $54B after last Friday’s $58B blowout. The charts look a little screwey today, but it is early and there are too many timing issues to count battling it out. Perhaps most interesting is that as of yesterday, we have no debt limit… at least until May 19th. I expected a flood of debt to flow back onto the balance sheet…around $100B or so, but debt only increased $41B. I’ll chalk it up to timing for now…we shall see.
In other news, the CBO released an updated 10 year budget outlook today projecting an $845B deficit for fiscal 2013. I have to assume they have much better information and more time than I do. It’s not a crazy number, but it does seem a bit optimistic. With 4 months in the books, we are averaging a $4B per month improvement over last fiscal year’s $1.092T cash deficit. At this pace, they won’t make it, but admittedly, the tax increases that kicked in last month should help. I believe that for the calendar year, I projected $1T, +/- $100B. Just for fun, let’s see who is better at this…a bureaucracy with a huge staff, or a guy with a ruler. I haven’t done a formal fiscal year forecast, but I don’t mind throwing a dart. There are 8 months left, so lets just assume that revenues increase $20B per month and outlays increase $10B over last year. That would give us a $10B pickup per month and land us right under $1T. For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for the CBO.2013-02-04 USDD