Question about THIS years ridiculous budget deficit....

[da_suns_fan]

I thought we had trillion dollar annual deficits the past two years for two reasons:

1) 2008 had the TARP bailout of around 700 billion

2) 2009 had the stimulus bill of around 800 billion.

Thus, these expenditures would come off the books (but still be part of the national debt) in the next years budgets.

How is it that we have a 1.5 trillion dollar debt this year?

That number is so huge its mind boggling. The white house talks about taxing banks to save 90 billion over ten years. Thats 9 billion dollars a year. We have a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit. Thats 1,500 billions. Talk about a drop in the pond.

Anyway, can anyone explain why this huge number is still so high?

[Winehole23]

We're used to it now. Trillions is the new billions.

[da_suns_fan]

We're used to it now. Trillions is the new billions.

True, but what am I missing? How is the deficit still this high when theres no new stimulus or huge TARP bailout this year?

[ElNono]

True, but what am I missing? How is the deficit still this high when theres no new stimulus or huge TARP bailout this year?

I assume that the costs of wars are now part of the budget, where they were kept off it (for reasons unknown to me) during the previous administration...

[Winehole23]

http://wallstreetpit.com/12241-the-us-budget-challenge-in-international-context

[Winehole23]

http://bluebandmedia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/DAT2010mint.jpg

[ElNono]

Here's another interactive breakdown:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

[Winehole23]

Ah, that's much better, ElNono. :tu

I had a little trouble finding a good graphic earlier.

[coyotes_geek]

I thought we had trillion dollar annual deficits the past two years for two reasons:

1) 2008 had the TARP bailout of around 700 billion

2) 2009 had the stimulus bill of around 800 billion.

Thus, these expenditures would come off the books (but still be part of the national debt) in the next years budgets.

How is it that we have a 1.5 trillion dollar debt this year?

That number is so huge its mind boggling. The white house talks about taxing banks to save 90 billion over ten years. Thats 9 billion dollars a year. We have a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit. Thats 1,500 billions. Talk about a drop in the pond.

Anyway, can anyone explain why this huge number is still so high?

Most of the stimulus money wasn't going to hit until this year. Last year you also had some non-tarp, non-stimulus money floating around. AIG for example.

[Nbadan]

Here's another interactive breakdown:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

$251 billion in net interest..but...but ...wing-nuts said it was gonna bleed us dry..

[coyotes_geek]

$251 billion in net interest..but...but ...wing-nuts said it was gonna bleed us dry..

You might want to go educate yourself on the difference between net interest and total interest before gloating about how we're "only" spending $250 billion on net interest this year. Even that net interest figure is still $60+ billion more than it was last year.

[Nbadan]

You might want to go educate yourself on the difference between net interest and total interest before gloating about how we're "only" spending $250 billion on net interest this year. Even that net interest figure is still $60+ billion more than it was last year.

A lot of government debt is held by the government, such as, in the Social Security surplus fund, when you subtract the yearly deficit from this amount you get the net interest on the debt..


..good enough for you...my point still stands...

[Rogue]

lets blame George W. Bush sons, even the president does so to justify his inabilities of handling his role.

[Jacob1983]

Obama isn't responsible for the deficit. He just inherited it from Bush. It's kind of amazing that America can still function as a country while having a gigantic deficit.

[coyotes_geek]

A lot of government debt is held by the government, such as, in the Social Security surplus fund, when you subtract the yearly deficit from this amount you get the net interest on the debt..


..good enough for you...my point still stands...

The problem is that the government still has to go out and tax or borrow the money to cover those interest payments from someone. If you borrow money from your wife and promise to pay it back with interest, you've still got to find a way to get the money to cover those payments from somewhere else.