Budget Deficit Tops $1 Trillion For First Time

INCOMPETENCE.....
WASHINGTON -- Nine months into the fiscal year, the federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time.

The imbalance is intensifying fears about higher interest rates and inflation, and already pressuring the value of the dollar. There's also concern about trying to reverse the deficit -- by reducing government spending or raising taxes -- in the midst of a harsh recession.

The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to nearly $1.1 trillion.

The deficit has been propelled by the huge sum the government has spent to combat the recession and financial crisis, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. Paying for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

America's soaring deficits are making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

"These are mind boggling numbers," said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run."

Government spending is on the rise to address the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and an unemployment rate that has climbed to 9.5 percent.

Congress already approved a $700 billion financial bailout and a $787 billion economic stimulus package to try and jump-start a recovery, and there is growing talk among some Obama administration officials that a second round of stimulus may be necessary.

This has many Republicans and deficit hawks worried that the U.S. could be setting itself up for more financial pain down the road if interest rates and inflation surge. They also are raising alarms about additional spending the administration is proposing, including its plan to reform health care.

President Barack Obama and other administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have said the U.S. is committed to bringing down the deficits once the country has emerged from the current recession and financial crisis.

Not something we can't handle, but we will have to decide if we want to deal with the pain, to bring down the deficits or if we will inflate our way out of it.
Either way there is pain in our future, which no one wants to accept.

Graycap23 said:

Brutal.... This will not end well
[Edited 7/13/09 16:10pm]

Despite the number, we can afford it.
Our bigger problem, is that there is only so much money on the planet to borrow. Others need to borrow for their own needs. We could reach the point of forcing others to raise their interest rates to compete for funds against the U.S.
Our interest rates should be lower because we are more stable and more reliable.

Graycap23 said:

SUPRMAN said:

Tremolina said:

SUPRMAN said:

Despite the number, we can afford it.
Our bigger problem, is that there is only so much money on the planet to borrow. Others need to borrow for their own needs. We could reach the point of forcing others to raise their interest rates to compete for funds against the U.S.
Our interest rates should be lower because we are more stable and more reliable.

"more stable and reliable"



than who?

uPtoWnNY said:

PurpleJedi said:

Tax revenues are way down, because Bush tanked the economy. It will take a couple years to get them back to where they used to be.

"Guitar" on Leno is the greatest performance in the history of rock ' roll

Second Funkiest White Man in America

It sure is nice having adults running our government now

SUPRMAN said:

Tremolina said:

"more stable and reliable"



than who?

Politically, who is more stable?
We are the gold standard. Or right up there.
Than who? Oh China, Russia, Italy, India, Mexico, etc., that's a pretty long list . . . .

PurpleJedi said:

First time? I thought it has hit in the trillions before

angel345 said:

First time? I thought it has hit in the trillions before

Tremolina said:

PurpleJedi said:

PurpleJedi said:

Tremolina said:

PurpleJedi said:

SUPRMAN said:

violetblues said:

PurpleJedi said:

Eureka-!
That was my point.
It doesn't do me a damned lick of good (as a middle-class American) for insurance to be mandated for the whole entire country...when I can barely afford the insurance I have right now!!!

There was a time when doctors became doctors to heal the sick. Nowadays it's all about the BMW's and McMansions. When's the last time a doctor actually tried to "heal" you, as opposed to prescribing a bottle of pills?

Can the masses gain access to healthcare without insurance? Absolutely. Fidel Castro did it. But - as you already pointed out - America is all about the $$$ so we can just forget about government clinics here.

I don't claim to know what the answer to this problem is. I believe that it's a complicated matter that will require a complicated solution. Not just more insurance to make the insurance companies that much more rich.

You mentioned Fidel, So you’re siding with the republicans on this and mention Fidel as a success story too?

I don’t think the republicans will like your reasoning too much.

Status quo, socialism, or something in between, I think the Dems plan is trying to be that something in between.

Tremolina said:

Tremolina said:

Tremolina said:

violetblues said:

PurpleJedi said:

Eureka-!
That was my point.
It doesn't do me a damned lick of good (as a middle-class American) for insurance to be mandated for the whole entire country...when I can barely afford the insurance I have right now!!!

There was a time when doctors became doctors to heal the sick. Nowadays it's all about the BMW's and McMansions. When's the last time a doctor actually tried to "heal" you, as opposed to prescribing a bottle of pills?

Can the masses gain access to healthcare without insurance? Absolutely. Fidel Castro did it. But - as you already pointed out - America is all about the $$$ so we can just forget about government clinics here.

I don't claim to know what the answer to this problem is. I believe that it's a complicated matter that will require a complicated solution. Not just more insurance to make the insurance companies that much more rich.

You mentioned Fidel, So you’re siding with the republicans on this and mention Fidel as a success story too?

I don’t think the republicans will like your reasoning too much.

Status quo, socialism, or something in between, I think the Dems plan is trying to be that something in between.

SUPRMAN said:

Tremolina said:

Nationalisation? Please...

Sure you think these so called doctors should be able to make shitloads of money.

Thta's no suprise.

But that system of greed you support, even in the case of people's health, has proven not to work.

It is in fact the exact cause of the problems.

But you go and keep on defending failure.

How is it greed if people are giving it to them? Apparently they are EARNING it.
And of course, those fee have to pay for the business and the staff and equipment,and on yeah the trophy wife, house and cars, so what? Stop hatin.'

I think the bigger problem is that medical treatment has a status attached to it that would diminish in a nationalized health care world.

Tremolina said:

SUPRMAN said:

How is it greed if people are giving it to them? Apparently they are EARNING it.
And of course, those fee have to pay for the business and the staff and equipment,and on yeah the trophy wife, house and cars, so what? Stop hatin.'

I think the bigger problem is that medical treatment has a status attached to it that would diminish in a nationalized health care world.

When people don't have another option to get better than to pay doctors the millions they are demanding, because they are sick, then those doctors don't earn it.

Doctors main goal should be to heal people, no to make money off their backs.

Fact of the matter is that it has become all about the $ and that's a sickness of itself. Health shouldn't be about money.

--
[Edited 7/20/09 1:19am]

Tremolina said:

violetblues said:

You mentioned Fidel, So you’re siding with the republicans on this and mention Fidel as a success story too?

I don’t think the republicans will like your reasoning too much.

Status quo, socialism, or something in between, I think the Dems plan is trying to be that something in between.

Who gives a shit what those incompetent, hateful, powerhungry, greedy bastards
have to say?

In 8 years they have shown to be nothing but a bunch of total failures. Fuck'em, their lies and their failed ideologies.

SUPRMAN said: