The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 10/31/2014 was $43.5B bringing the October 2014 deficit to $113B for the full month.
I don’t have time for a full analysis, but the bottom line is that revenues were up $23B good for a 10% uptick. Even if some of it was likely one time events…cash is cash. Outlays were up $42B and 13% primarily on month end timing issues as outlays due 11/1 were pulled into 10/31 because of the weekend. The size of the timing event was more than I expected primarily on higher than anticipated Medicare outlays…pushing the monthly deficit all the way to $113B….honestly I was expecting it to end up a bit under $100B, which was my initial forecast for the month.
So revenues posted their second consecutive month of strong revenues in the +10% range….very interesting. If we see it continue through November and December we may have something to be optimistic about….maybe. Outlays were higher than I expected with a sizable surge for Medicare…it will be interesting to see if that continues. Combined, SS, Medicare and Medicaid are at $1.433T through 10 months of 2014 compared to $1.306T in 2013. That’s a $127B and 10% increase. Even if everything else stays flat…we clearly need a huge amount of new revenue each year just to stay even. Fortunately for us…that’s exactly what has been happening…let’s just hope it never stops 🙂
