The $223 Billion February Deficit in Perspective

The American Thinker Blog ^ | March 08, 2011 | Yossi Gestetner

[Scanian]

The Washington Times reports that the federal deficit for February 2011, was approximately $223 billion. No I didn't write 2.23 billion dollars. It is $223 billion; a record for one month. Here is some context:

"•Dividing the $223 billion in the 28 days of February amounts to $7.9 billion in new debt per day. •Republicans are trying to cut spending by $60 billion for the remaining seven months of the current budget year. This is $8.57 billion in cuts per each month. No, not per day. $8.57 per month. •The $4 billion in "cuts" that Republicans won last week, is equivalent to the amount debt raised in any given 12-13 hours, (hours that is), of a day in February. •If we divide in twelve months the $412 billion deficit of FY 2004 ($34.43 billion per month), the largest deficit year of President Bush and the recent Republican Congress, it is less debt than any five days of this past February. •The $690 billion 'cost' over ten year of Bush's tax cuts for the top two percent richest Americans, amounts to $69 per year; $5.75 billion per month, or perhaps approximately $200 million per day divided in 365 days. Again, $200 million per day (give or take a few million)is the 'costs' of tax cut, while new overall debt per day rises by $7.9 billion."

With this in mind, one wonders how cutting a mere $60 billion spread through the next seven month, would make any negative dent in the jobs market as some economists warned, or a dent in important programs as democrats - who via ObamaCare ripped $500 billion out of Medicare -- warned. Besides, if a $787 billion stimulus funded between 1.3 and 3.5 million jobs, how can cutting only sixty billion suddenly cost up to 700,000 jobs?

[ClearCase_guy]

Excellent analysis. No solutions will be found until people speak about the problem clearly. If people are saying that $60B in cuts is draconian, then there is no point in even discussing the matter — there can be no expectation that the other side will listen to reason or do what must be done.

[Thebaddog]

$223 billion x twelve comes to $2.68 trillion. Am I missing something?

[mark3681]

The Republican cuts are just a show for the voters. The”Old Guard” isn’t going to piss off their donors. The new Tea Party conservatives are a good start to combating our problems but we’re going to need a lot more of them come 2012.

[lmr]

The problem is that many people hear 'Million', 'Billion', 'Trillion' and it's all the same to them. Most people are too ignorant, stupid and lazy to even want to wrap their heads around numbers like that. It's easier just to blame 'Fat Cats' and 'Wall Street' if something does go wrong. That the media refuses to hold Dems feet to the fire is a huge problem too because most all are like Krugman, they believe government needs to spend our way 'out of this.' Dems in Congress will demogogue paltry Republican cuts as 'draconian', while touting their own non-existent cuts as 'fiscally responsible.' The media just keeps beating this class-warfare false dichotomy into the ground at every turn despite it's hypocrisy.

As I've always said, we are going to keep on losing these battles unless we can change the media in this nation. They are doing us great harm and great disservice on so many levels.

[sten]

everything is going according to the dem/progressive plan.

they should collapse this country in no time

and they don’t give a sh*t what you have to say... so long as they can forestall any opposing actions long enough for them to get us passed the point of no return

next time you run into a liberal/progressive type... ask them if this is the change they were looking for. if they say yes, then you know you are standing in front of your enemy

[RadiationRomeo]

I’ve given up. The 60 billion republican cut really is the same as the 6 billion dem cut when compared to the actual cuts needed. There will never be enough tea partiers to ever change things. We will default and go into the biggest depression the world has ever seen. There is no way to prevent it.

Well there is one way: shutting down the government and being forced to spend what they have.