Shared from a friend, Dean Stephens
March Madness: U.S. Gov’t Spent More Than Eight Times Its Monthly Revenue
By Terence P. Jeffrey
Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsbility with his co-chair former Sen. Alan Simpson (R.-Wyo.) (AP photo/Alex Brandon)
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Treasury has released a final statement for the month of March that demonstrates that financial madness has gripped the federal government.
During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.
At the same time, the Treasury paid out a total of $1.1187 trillion. When the $65.898 billion in tax refunds is deducted from that, the Treasury paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March.
That $1.0528 trillion in spending for March equaled 8.2 times the $128.179 in net federal tax revenue for the month.
The lion’s share of this federal spending went to redeem Treasury securities that had matured during the month—most of which were short-term Treasury bills that have terms of one year or less.
In fact, during March the Treasury redeemed $705.3 billion in Treasury securities of which $623.9 billion were short-term bills with a term of one year or less.
After the disbursements made to pay off the $705.3 billion in loans that came due in March, three of the other top four federal spending items for the month were entitlements programs. The other top item was payments to defense contractors.
The Treasury paid $49.8 billion in Social Security benefits in March, $47.4 billion in Medicare benefits, and $22.575 billion in Medicaid benefits. It also paid $37.9 billion to defense contractors.
To help pay off its $1.0528 trillion in monthly bills on only $128.179 in monthly tax revenue, the Treasury turned primarily to new borrowing. During the month, according to the Treasury statement, the government sold $786.5 billion in new securities. It also drew down its cash balance from $190.6 billion at the beginning of the month to $118.1 billion at the end of the month. It also reaped $18 billion from the sale of assets in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The federal government’s cash-flow situation was summed up pungently in Senate Budget Committee testimony by Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and is now the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. (See video below.)
“I’m really concerned,” Bowles told the committee last month. “I think we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. A lot of us sitting in this room didn’t see this last crisis as it came upon us. But this one is really easy to see. The fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable.
“This debt and these deficits that we are incurring on an annual basis are like a cancer and they are truly going to destroy this country from within unless we have the common sense to do something about it,” said Bowles.
“I used to say that I got into this thing for my grandchildren,” Bowles said. “I have eight grandchildren under five years old. I’ll have one more in a week. And my life is wonderful and it is wild. But this problem is going to happen long before my grandchildren grow up.
“This problem is going to happen, like the former chairman of the Fed said, or the Moody’s said, this is a problem we’re going to have to face up,” he said. “It may be two years, you know, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. But if our bankers over there in Asia begin to believe that we’re not going to be solid on our debt, that we’re not going to be able to meet our obligations, just stop and think for a minute what happens if they just stop buying our debt.
“What happens to interest rates?” asked Bowles. “And what happens to the U.S. economy? The markets will absolutely devastate us if we don’t step up to this problem. The problem is real, the solutions are painful, and we have to act.”
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The president and congress can strip the Fed of all financial power, educate the people of America and the World on how Natioinal Central Banks have stolen the wealth of the people of the world by simply “creating” money with a few key stroke on a computer and thus creating debt that is impossible to repay and so financially enslave the peope and nations. Then declare that since this whole thing is a world wide fraud there is no real debt to repay. Ditto the debt of the EU and other countries around the world. It is a fundamental tenant of US and international law that “once Fraud enters into any agreement it visciates even the most solemn promise to pay.” (Quote from supreme court decision)
Of course then we would have to return to an honest money system and all the people making money off the present system would need to get real jobs.
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Hearing that and watching the Democrats and some ill meaning RHINOS that joined the Democrats along with the POTUS oppose budget cuts that will begin to rescue America from this spiral into oblivian, is akin to watching a bunch of idiots putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger. HOW IS IT THAT THEY DO NOT SEE THE TRAIN WRECK THAT THEY ARE INTENTIONALLY ENGINEERING!! THE ANSWER IS THAT THEY ARE STUPID OR EVIL OR BOTH!!!
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TRUE CUTS would be in the 3/4-1 trillion arena.
The taxpayer stolen money given to ‘the green industry’, ‘non-profits (what an oxymoron..)’, ‘union only can bid on jobs’ ad infinitum is a HUGE reason as to why Socialism IS a failed experiment EVERYTIME it’s implemented,
Socialism can’t exist without Capitalism. Capitalism has PROVEN to survive without Capitalism.
-Independent who didn’t drink the kool-aid.
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I’m sure most found it ridiculous the kabuki theater in ’09 when the Government nitwits, who’d put the American people in TRILLIONS of dollars in debt through the years, sanctimoniously grilling the banks and their CEO’s of taking billions of dollars of the very same cash the government STOLE from the American people and GAVE TO THE BANKS in the first place!!
It costs ~$35-40 billion PER DAY for the country to function. The ‘cuts’ the ‘D’s and ‘R’s propose are both accomplishing NOTHING.
Get rid of welfare for the multi-generational wastes of space plaguing the urban areas and make them and their children from multiple partners work!
‘Encourage’ or FORCE people 40 and younger to start a 401k and/or Roth retirement plan.
86 Obamacare for ‘paying’ for the right to live is as draconian as it gets. there’s infinitely more to do but this may help matters more so than the 535 idiots who are out to destroy my country..
-Independent who didn’t drink the kool-aid.
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Where is the news media on this. Republicans are right. Cut, Cut, Cut
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Why is the president not doing something about this? Why are we not demanding that he does?
The media and the liberals have managed to place the Republican party in the role of mature parent. The liberals get to be the bad kids who have all the fun, and conservatives have to be the voice of reason that enforces the rules. In the end the budget may get fixed, but it will always be the republicans that cut the benefits, the republicans that raised taxes on the middle class, the republicans that destroyed this or that popular program. The liberals know that if in the end the budget crisis is overcome, Republicans will be villianized as heartless people. If it doesn’t get oevrcome, Republicans will be villianized as not having fullfilled their role as parent.
We need to demand Democrats grow up and present real ideas on how to close the budget gap. Why every nite show host is not making fun of Obama the ostrich with his head in the sand hoping the budget problem will go away is beyond me.
We need a president – not an ostrich. Pull your head out Obama and help solve this budget crisis!
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The commons were free use grazing areas in town centers. Things would be great if the area could sustain 50 sheep owned by 5 ranchers and things stayed that way. But a rancher who adds 1 sheep gets full benefit of the grazing at no cost to him. But the pasture is degraded for all. As each rancher adds sheep, actiing in his own best interest the pasture is destroyed.
Self interest is the ultimate problem at the expense of all.
Whether it’s property taxes, income taxes etc. It all translates to today’s issues. Politics is local, finances are personal and our votes continually add more sheep to our overgrazed pasture. Ultimately and sadly it is democratic voting, at any level of gov., that allows us to act in our self interest and destroy ourselves.
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Government is uniquely qualified to do this because they are armed.
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This is like a Homeless street person going and buying a limo with no cash to drive around and pickup aluminum cans. Who in their right mind would give the street person the limo if he doesn’t have any cash? No one. But lets say the car company let him do it then what will happen? do you think he has any intention is paying for the Limo? Of course not but this is exactly what the Govt is doing So how is it the Govt can do this? They don’t have any intention of paying the debt they created. Some one is allowing this to collapse the system so that a fundamental transformation can take place.
This is crazy you could make this stuff up.
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Whoops.
The American government as we have known it doesn’t work, and will fail. This isn’t so hard to understand: It has happened time and time again to the great civilizations throughout history. It’s our turn. The only thing that we should be trying to ensure at this point is that the transition to come is bloodless, and that what replaces our Constitutional Republic is something worth having. We are in dire, dire danger of slipping into either anarchy or totalitarianism. And yes, it CAN happen here.
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What we’re looking at, in a manner of speaking, is no different than a low to middle class individual with more bills than income, using credit cards to buy food, and suddenly finding themselves with rising utility expenses, food expenses, gasoline expenses, etc. That is where our government is at. They have more things to pay for than they have revenue coming in to cover it, so they are forced to do things on credit in order to maintain the standard of life we have come to enjoy in the United States.
I do not doubt or deny that our government is behaving with gross irresponsibility. However, I do also see that there is some small amount of necessity that is driving some of it. I see the logic, for example, in cutting entitlement programs. There are, and will always be, people who abuse the system. But I don’t see the humanity in putting someone who is 85 years old on the street after they paid into SS all their lives, or cutting benefits for someone who lost their legs fighting a war he didn’t volunteer to go fight. I don’t see the fulfillment of our righteous duty as human beings in starving children whose only crime of irresponsibility is having lazy parents.
So what can they really do about entitlement programs? If they leave them, one side complains. If they cut them, the other side complains. The programs in and of themselves are good things. They are intended to help people in crisis, so that you don’t lose your house if you are unexpectedly laid off and don’t have a paycheck for six weeks while you find another job and start getting paid again. But what they’ve become instead is a crutch for people who don’t want to find a job. If you take away Unemployment, you take away hope for those who don’t abuse the system. If you leave it, you enable those who do abuse it. If you take away SS, you condemn the 95% of stupid Americans who aren’t wise enough to plan for their own retirement. But if you leave it in its present form, you enable people who collect disability benefits for garbage like depression.
Maybe they should make an Entertainer’s Tax. Something outrageous like 90% of income earned through entertainment. Actors make me even more sick than the government. As recently as 1990, you could live comfortably off of your interest if you carefully invested half a million dollars. Some of these actors get that much per episode, and then have the nerve to complain, while at the same time, our butchers get $10 per hour, our carpenters get $20, our mechanics get $15, etc. The people who actually matter to the prosperity of the country get paid nothing and get taxed to the eyeballs, while the undeserving earn ridiculous amounts and find ways to avoid the taxes altogether, all the while complaining about wanting more.
Our country has no sense of itself. It’s people are stupid as a general rule. The government is full of idiots, voted in by morons . . . and when we are on the verge of needing to borrow some of Germany’s wheelbarrows to buy bread (because our dollar is getting so worthless that we wouldn’t be able to afford to buy them), they’re still spending a trillion dollars a month.
You can’t fix it. It’s completely broken.
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It is not too late. We are at the brink but we can stop this if congress acts now!
THE FEDS FAILED at their 70 year long FDR experiment. It is time we get Social security out to the private sector to help that 85 year old. The only things feds will do is do what is neccdessary to protect their very high compensation. Have you been noticing what has been going on in Wisconsin lately?
The federal workforce can fix this now. They can adjust their budgets down, fire people and start reducing their processes and simplifying procedures. BUT THEY ARE NOT!
We need to take the helm and fix this our selves. We need more peopel in congress to go after the budgets, cut programs consolidate agencies and programs and even cut departments al together.
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Dem Dopes worship at the alter of the NY Times which has stated over and over again there is no deficit problem, and that the earth is flat. Why is any attention paid to these proven Congressional morons, because the media morons with them agree.
What’s left of the left is the left of the left and that represents at best 10% of the voters, so marginalize them with ridicule and ignore them when they speak.
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Once we get this fixed, we have to understand that government is never to be trusted again. All government oversight, GAO, CBO, Open Government initiatives, FOIA, and all the others needs to be brought out of government and operated in the private sector. The feds have fully disclose 100% of their documents to these private sector oversight organizations with the exceptions of immediate national security. And even that has to have 100% full oversight by non-governmental teams of people with subject matter expertise and field experience. All line items will see scrutiny.
Federal workers should not have permanent careers in government. Government jobs should have a maximum of 10 years then the person moves on. We have been screwed by congress, the various presidents and this insidious unionized federal workforce.
As Jefferson said:
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
Lets fix this mess and educate the people about the constitution so that this never happens again. Had we just followed the constitution, the mess we have right now would have never happened.
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Bob Quintano 2 minutes ago
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weew 4 minutes ago
They ALL let us down.