The US Daily Cash Deficit for Wednesday 11/13/2013 was $16.0B pushing the November 2013 deficit through 13 days  to $68B primarily due to~ $12B of SS payments that went out.

Revenues actually took a small step back…losing about $2B of ground against 11/2012…I suspect most of this is timing of excise tax deposits…in which case we will catch back up over the next couple of days.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Tuesday 11/12/2013 was $3.9B…pushing the November 2013 Deficit down to $52B through 12 days….virtually unchanged from the $56B deficit we posted on 11/1. Since then, it’s been a deficit here, a surplus there…more or less netting to zero. But that likely ends with tomorrow’s report as a $12B SS payment is scheduled to go out, followed by ~$30B in interest payments on Friday.

There is really no bad news in today’s DTS…revenues gained another $2B over last year and outlays were down a little. Withheld tax deposits are running at +9%…pretty much in line with expectations, while everything else is flat netted together.

The US Daily Cash deficit for Friday 11/8/2013 was $3.5B, bringing the deficit for November 2013 to $56B through 8 days.

The month continues to book solid YOY gains with Revenue being up 7% and Outlays being down 7% giving us our $12B deficit improvement so far. On deck…Tuesday’s following a holiday are always unpredictable, so we’ll find out what happened  with that tomorrow followed by a $12B social security payment that goes out 11/13 (we’ll see it in the report issued 11/14) Friday 11/15 brings in some additional tax revenues, but will be overwhelmed by a large interest payment due…~$30B. It’s still too early to know, but I have to be honest…I’m starting to get a bit nervous that my $160B full month forecast may have been a bit pessimistic, but hey…that’s a good thing right!!

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 11/7/2013 was $3.9B bringing the November 2013 cash deficit through 7 days to $52B, $12B under the 11/2012 benchmark through 7 days of $64B.

Revenues continue to look solid currently at +5% YOY and gaining. Outlays still look weak, though they may make up some ground next week.

I was poking through the data and found it very interesting to compare the YOY change in revenues over the course of the year. For the first six months of 2013 we saw phenomenal YOY revenue growth at +18%. Over the same period we also saw outlays decline 3%. However….compare that with July-October with revenue up only 9% (still impressive…but not +18%) and outlays at +1%. It seems pretty clear that the tax avoidance timing and the Fannie Mae games have been flushed out, and a lower baseline has emerged.

Come 2014…I suspect a new baseline will emerge…certainly for revenues which will not have the benefit of a Jan 1 SS tax hike to pad their stats, and perhaps even for outlays. For example, by the end of 2013, payments to defense vendors will likely be down about 11%, or $45B below 2012. What will 2014 bring? Another $45B cut, or have we reached a new baseline? The second $45B is going to be a lot harder to cut than the first, so stay tuned. There is no doubt that 2013 is making some significant headway in decreasing the annual deficit, but I am still doubtful that progress can be maintained in 2014 and beyond. Hope I’m wrong 🙂