“The actual deficit for 2008 will be about $500 billion more,” writes another, “than the projected deficit of $410 billion. Please take a look at the table below from the U.S. budget Web site. The Bush administration's projection of the 2008 budget deficit of $410 billion is off by about $500 billion -- if the budget shenanigans of the past few years are any guide. “Before you write me off as another nut, look at the bottom line in the table in the column ‘Debt at start of year.’ You will see that at the start of fiscal 2007, the debt was $8.451 trillion and that the debt at the end of the year was $8.949 trillion. The difference -- that is, the real deficit -- was $497.1 billion.
“Yet the government announced late last year that the deficit in fiscal 2007 was $162 billion. The difference between the actual $497 billion and the announced $162 billion is $335 billion. Remember, these numbers come from the official government Web site. “The $335 billion credit to the budget was something you might find in Oz-land: the interest on the total obligation of the government to the Social Security Trust Fund, which is about $4 trillion (the interest rate was apparently something like 8%). The government's own stats (below) show that the actual deficits have been $498-594 billion per year since 2003, far higher than the announced deficits. “Please tell your readers that the government includes nonexistent credits in its numbers every time it announces the budget deficit. We are in even deeper doo-doo than we thought. I thank you, and so will your readers.”
“Yet the government announced late last year that the deficit in fiscal 2007 was $162 billion. The difference between the actual $497 billion and the announced $162 billion is $335 billion. Remember, these numbers come from the official government Web site. “The $335 billion credit to the budget was something you might find in Oz-land: the interest on the total obligation of the government to the Social Security Trust Fund, which is about $4 trillion (the interest rate was apparently something like 8%). The government's own stats (below) show that the actual deficits have been $498-594 billion per year since 2003, far higher than the announced deficits. “Please tell your readers that the government includes nonexistent credits in its numbers every time it announces the budget deficit. We are in even deeper doo-doo than we thought. I thank you, and so will your readers.”
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