Category

Debt Limit

Nov 17
0

Daily US Deficit For 11/15/2012

By | Daily Deficit, Debt Limit, Fiscal Cliff

The US Daily Deficit for 11/15/2012 was $30.9B on revenues of $12.6B and spending of $43.5B. The primary driver was interest expense totaling $29.9B. Remember… we are using cash accounting here, so we catch these interest payments when the cash goes out the door, unlike accrual accounting, where you would be recognizing the interest expense as it was incurred. Halfway through November, our deficit is running about $9B over last year. Last year, the total deficit was 142B for the full month. Since we are pretty much on track with last year, I’ll stick to that, and add an adjustment of $28B for a wild guess of $170B deficit for November 2012. Most of this adjustment is to account for December SSI payments that will go out 11/30 this year since 12/1 is on a weekend, the rest is just a plug to get me to a round number.

 

Nov 15
0

Daily US Deficit For 11/13/2012

By | Daily Deficit, Debt Limit, Fiscal Cliff

For 11/13/2012 the US government ran a surplus of $1.0B on revenue of $12.8B and 11.8B of expense. Don’t expect this to carry into tomorrow though. Social Security benefits go out the second, third, and fourth Wednesday’s of the month, so tomorrow’s report will likely have us at a $10-$15B daily deficit for 11/14. Quick math…that’s almost $50 per person in the United States….$250 for a family of 5. Yikes!! Maybe I should eat in tonight 🙂

Nov 14
0

Daily Deficit for 11/9/2012

By | Daily Deficit, Debt Limit, Fiscal Cliff

Just a note, the DTS are typically released the following business day at 4PM EST. The deficit for last Friday, 11/9 was $4.8B on revenue of $5.3B and spending of $10.0B. Yes..these are rounded. Here’s how the month is looking through 9 days:

Through 9 days, the November deficit is $68.7B, an $8.8B improvement over 2011. Don’t get too excited yet. Revenue and cost are highly variable, and fluctuate depending on the day of the week and payment schedules.

Nov 09
0

When Will We Hit The Debt Limit?

By | Debt Limit

I’m not sure if anyone remembers the drama from the last debt limit showdown last August, which ultimately ended in the limit being raised from $14.3T to$16.394, a $2.1T increase. As planned, they managed to get past the election, but now it’s time for round 2. It’s been 15 months, and in that time frame, the debt has increased $1.861T…for a monthly clip of $124B. Per the 11/8 DTS, total outstanding debt is $16.245T, of which $16.206T is subject to the limit. It’s complicated, just note that there is about $40B of debt not subject to the limit…we’ll be using that assumption for now.

 So…We are $188B from the limit. When will that fateful day be? It’s not rocket science, but due to the cyclical nature of both revenues and expenses, it’s not simple algebra either. We’ll start with cash in hand… $45B…and add it to the $188, for a total remaining “cushion” of $233B. Last Year, November and December had a combined deficit of 201B…lets just assume this year will be the same. If this is true, then we would assume another $137B of deficit between now and 12/31, leaving us with 96B left. However…that is only for external….we need to account for internal debt as well. Looking at Prior Years, We can estimate that at another $50B, leaving us right around $46B remaining on 12/31. Fortunately, Jan is another light month, unfortunately, monthly spending is usually front loaded…getting past 1/15/2013 seems unlikely. I haven’t factored in the so called “Extrordinary” measures Treasury could take to minimize cash outflows. I’ll take a crack at those at a later date. In any case, tax refunds make February the worst month of the year…there is simply no way we make it through February without some big problems. So…throwing my dart not fully understanding the extrordinary measures piece of this…I’m going to say 1/20 is the day of recconing and log out for the day.