Little-Acorn
04-12-2011, 04:42 PM
With the Obamanites in charge, I guess this should be no surprise. Nobody believed him when he promised to cut the deficits in his campaign speeches (yawn).
But I have a question.
We have not had a real budget for this fiscal year (first 6 mionths of fiscal 2011). Congress has passed "Continuing resolutions" instead, to keep funding the government.
Isn't the rule on Continuing Resolutions, that they are not allowed to increase any spending over last year's budget? IIRC, that's why they are called "Continuing Resolutions" - they continue spending at last year's level.
The article here says that revenues actually went UP during this most recent 6 months. How could we have had even bigger increases in spending, sufficient to explode the deficit like this, when all we've had are Continuing Resolutions that aren't supposed to increase spending AT ALL?
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5il-7COiRQUJ9kbLkZ3gg4nrlac5Q?docId=CNG.dcd81b51497966 fd4c6461748e63e3ee.921
US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011
April 12, 2011
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON — The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle.
The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period, compared with $717 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose a sluggish 6.9 percent as the economic recovery slowly gained pace.
The Treasury argued that the pace of increase in the deficit was deceptive because of large one-off reductions in expenditures made during the first half of fiscal 2010, compared with previous and subsequent periods.
Those included a $115 billion reduction in funds spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) -- the financial institution bailout program -- in March 2010.
But 2011 so far has also seen significant increases in spending on defense, Social Security, health and debt service, while receipts have not grown as fast.
But I have a question.
We have not had a real budget for this fiscal year (first 6 mionths of fiscal 2011). Congress has passed "Continuing resolutions" instead, to keep funding the government.
Isn't the rule on Continuing Resolutions, that they are not allowed to increase any spending over last year's budget? IIRC, that's why they are called "Continuing Resolutions" - they continue spending at last year's level.
The article here says that revenues actually went UP during this most recent 6 months. How could we have had even bigger increases in spending, sufficient to explode the deficit like this, when all we've had are Continuing Resolutions that aren't supposed to increase spending AT ALL?
-------------------------------------
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5il-7COiRQUJ9kbLkZ3gg4nrlac5Q?docId=CNG.dcd81b51497966 fd4c6461748e63e3ee.921
US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011
April 12, 2011
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON — The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle.
The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period, compared with $717 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose a sluggish 6.9 percent as the economic recovery slowly gained pace.
The Treasury argued that the pace of increase in the deficit was deceptive because of large one-off reductions in expenditures made during the first half of fiscal 2010, compared with previous and subsequent periods.
Those included a $115 billion reduction in funds spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) -- the financial institution bailout program -- in March 2010.
But 2011 so far has also seen significant increases in spending on defense, Social Security, health and debt service, while receipts have not grown as fast.