The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 12/24/2013 was $16.1B driven by the final big payment of SS for the month at $12.7B. This brings the monthly total for SS to $62.6B…about $0.5B over last month’s $62.1B as at least some of the COLA for 2014 kicked in. I had expected about a $1B increase ($62*01.5%), so this is below my expectations….I wonder if it is timing, or just a beat? We’ll probably have to wait for Jan to find out. If it is a beat….just remember that this increases the baseline for the year by a full $6B, which may not sound like much, but in perpetuity…plus a growing base….it adds up quickly. Combined, SS is growing at about $58B per year annualized. Compare that to the latest budget deal, which supposedly saves $23B….over 10 years….hardly even a rounding error. Our TTM cash spend on SS is currently at $733B. At this pace…assuming moderate 5%-6% growth, we would hit $1T in less than 5 years…November 2018.
To the charts…we have some Christmas related timing issues, but same old story…revenues are still down, though cost has come up a bit….it will be interesting to see if that is timing or if it actually sticks. We are still at a surplus for the month and are almost certain to stay there thanks to about $35-$40B of cash that should come in 12/31 thanks to our good buddies at Fannie/Freddie and their Enron accounting principles…hey it’s cash…we’ll take it right??
