In addition to his usual tired historical revisionism, the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger, in his report on May's budget deficit of $82 billion, failed to mention that the nation is once again operating at the legal limit of its authorized debt. Additionally, he mailed in his final five paragraphs, virtually copying what he wrote on May 12 in covering April's surplus.
The nation's debt ceiling has been stuck at $18.15 trillion since mid-March. Since then, the Treasury Department has taken "so-called extraordinary measures to allow continued borrowing for a limited time" (i.e., engaged in accounting and bookkeeping gimmickry) to keep the official debt total at that amount. Treasury's ability to do this is now expected to run out in December. A few paragraphs from Crutsinger's report follow the jump (bolds are mine):
US BUDGET DEFICIT DROPS TO $82.4 BILLION IN MAY
... For the first eight months of this budget year, which began Oct. 1, the deficit totals $365.2 billion, down 16.3 percent from the same period last year. This year's deficit improvement has been helped by a stronger economy, which has pushed up tax receipts by 8.6 percent.
The revenue increase pushed receipts to $2.1 trillion for the period October through May. Outlays were up at a slower pace, rising 4 percent to $2.47 trillion.
... The 2014 deficit was down from $680.2 billion in 2013. Before then, the U.S. had recorded four straight years of annual deficits topping $1 trillion. That reflected the impact of a severe financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
As I noted a month ago, the increase in receipts likely has more to do with the 2013 tax increases than it does with a stronger economy, which readers surely know is not all that strong. At a minimum, it's certainly a significant contributing factor, and Crutsinger should have mentioned it.
As has been his habit, the AP reporter also ignored the deliberate ramping up spending caused by President Obama's $800 stimulus bill in 2009, and the government essentially making the increased levels of spending inherent in that bill the permanent baseline for spending. Before President Obama's arrival, fiscal 2008's $2.978 trillion in total spending was seen as absolutely outrageous, even by Obama, and 2007's $2.729 trillion was even considered a bit excessive. Now, the government's "don't you dare touch this" spending level is at least $3.4 trillion, while President Obama's 2016 budget envisions spending $4 trillion.
Finally, the last excerpted paragraph of Crutsinger's dispatch above is the first of five which he lifted from his May report on April's monthly surplus virtually word for word. At the very least, that action demonstrates a lack of original thought. A side-by-side comparison is here.
Both sets of paragraphs contain the President's desire for tax increases while conveniently "forgetting" the 2013 increases I noted above.
This month's narrative about Obama's budget is overkill, because almost no one outside of the White House takes anything contained in that budget seriously.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
