USA Federal Deficit Cut in Half

[inquisitive]

A Proclamation of Good News

In 2004 President Bush made a "promise to the American people that we would cut the federal deficit in half over five years."

"Today I'm pleased to report we have achieved this goal, and we've done it three years ahead of schedule.":happy64::happy64::happy64::happy64:

President Bush Discusses the Economy and Budget (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061011-7.html)

[niss0001]

:happy64: :happy64:

[buck74]

One thing they don't tell you is there was a 150 billion dollar surplus in social security that was paid into the government this year. It was all spent on other government projects(a lot of pork). The reason social security will run out in 2040 is because all of the surplus has been spent, if it was really saved in a trust fund it would have gone much further.

[RogerL]

Two things. The topic should be changed. The budget "Deficit" was cut in half, not the budget. I would love to see the budget cut down to $1.35 trillion from the $2.7 trillion that's being spent this fiscal year.

Second, the Social Security trust fund is in an even riskier position than you say. The surplus will remain until perhaps 2017 or 2018. Aftwards, even Social Security will start running a deficit. The trust fund is a myth. There is no trust fund. The claims that it's solvent until 2040 is nonsense since the entire trust fund is made up of a filing cabinet somewhere in West Virginia that's stuffed full of paper IOU's from the Federal Treasury to the "trust fund". President Bush had a picture taken with him and the filing cabinet to emphasize just how non-existent the trust fund really is when he was trying to push for Social Security reform and individual accounts.

There are no financial certificates behind it. No Treasuries, no nothing. Just IOU's. So starting in 2018 or so, the Federal Treasury will have to start borrowing money in the form of new debt just to fund Social Security from the general budget. And that will continue indefinitely regardless of that 2040 date. In reality, Social Security will be bankrupt in 2018, give or take a year or two.

And every year that goes by without a real fix for Social Security makes the problem even worse. Democrats demagogue anyone who tries to fix it, making it politically untenable.

I should say that for every billion that's borrowed by the Treasury after 2018, a billion in phony IOU's will be removed from that file cabinet. That's how they can say, accounting-wise, that the trust fund is solvent until 2040. It'll take that long to remove all that paper from the cabinet.

[inquisitive]

It is the budget deficit...sorry..a bad mistake of mine probably due to being up all night . I was posting to give us all something to read while we were hanging out waiting for the press conference. Maybe the Mods can add that word into the title for us. Thanks:wave:

[SHJAM]

:no: They overstated the budget intentionally so that they could come back later and show how much they saved. ..... Classic trick ....:no: