August Budget Chart All News Outlets Would Report If They Weren't Liberal

NewsBusters.org ^ | July 13, 2011 | 18:53 | Noel Sheppard

[TexasCajun]

James Pethokoukis of Reuters published a chart Tuesday demonstrating exactly why all the hysteria about a debt default or missing Social Security check payments is a bunch of nonsense.

If America's news outlets were actually interested in disseminating the truth rather than fear-mongering, this chart or something like it would be part of every report involving the debt ceiling:

What this chart created by the securities firm Goldman Sachs perfectly demonstrates is that there are ample tax receipts coming to the Treasury in August to pay the interest on our debt, Social Security, Medicare, and "essential" defense costs.

[TexasCajun]

GOSS: Whenever we pay any money out of the Social Security trust fund, we must redeem bonds. And when we redeem bonds, that actually lowers the amount of debt subject to ceiling. However, in order to pay the benefits, the Treasury must at the same time then issue bonds to the public which therefore increases the debt subject to the ceiling. So there is in effect kind of an offset between the two

More at the link. ...good job by Noel Sheppard

[GeronL]

good chart

[HiTech RedNeck]

So long as the economy doesn’t go any flatter, that is. It’s kind of hard to tax sales or income that nobody makes, f’rinstance if they have gone Galt. Too high a tax rate is counterproductive in terms of absolute revenue. The optimum might even be found at rates lower than Bush’s rates.

[patton]

So, they take a super special SS bond out of the file cabinet in WVA, thus reducing the debt, turn around and sell it to the FED for fiat currency, thus increasing the debt back to where it was, and pay the benefits, with no effect on the debt at all?

So why is the SS bar on that chart at all?

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

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[patton]

Oh, I get it - the SS bar represents the AUGEST SS TAXES PAID by the public that they intend to swipe for something else.

Government accounting is hard!