A look at the US budget deficit

avatar

It now stands at 5.93% of GDP. Here is the chart:


source

As you can see from the chart, the US government normally runs a big budget deficit in times of acute stress/emergency; the Great Financial Crash, and the Covid pandemic. In those instances a big budget deficit makes sense,as the government has to step in to "save the day".

The current deficit is historically weird.

There is no crisis where the govt has to intervene. It's true that there are wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but US spending on them is a fraction of what it spent in Vietnam and Iraq, and neither of those two wars caused a big budget deficit.

In addition the economy appears to be growing strongly. That usually results in bumper tax receipts which automatically reduce the deficit. That isn't happening this time.

Either the US economy is not doing as well as it appears (and the figures will get revised down), or there is some hidden spending going on beneath the surface.



0
0
0.000
1 comments
avatar

Thank you for your witness vote!
Have a !BEER on me!
To Opt-Out of my witness beer program just comment STOP below

0
0
0.000