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U.S. Treasury Shows Actual 2004 Budget Deficit at $11.1 Trillion
This includes Social Security or rather the money owed to the Social Security trust.
When the U.S. Treasury reported the official 2004 federal budget deficit at a record $413 billion last October, the hisses and boos in the financial media were unrelenting. Two months later, the Treasury reported the actual 2004 deficit -- using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) -- was really an incredible $11.1 trillion [1], up from $3.7 trillion in 2003, yet nary a word was heard in the financial media, from Wall Street or from any political denizen of that former malarial swamp on the Potomac. An exception, of course, was Treasury Secretary John Snow, who signed the government's financial statements, but the data release was as low key as physically possible.
Much of the increase in the broad GAAP-based deficit was due to a set-up charge from booking the 2004 "enhancements" to the Medicare system.
Consider taking a small position in gold futures?
July 12 2005, 17:02:35 UTC 6 years ago
And I say this as someone who is generally an alarmist about Federal Deficit/Debt watch.
Using "unfunded obligations/liabilities" of Medicare and SS as a basis for a GAAP analysis of "true" deficit/debt seems to imply counting future shortfalls in funding for these two programs as part of a formula to determine an annual operating deficit.
Even with that one time Medicare charge (which also seems ... funny), the article's chart shows that Social Security is operating on a $4.1 trillion annual deficit. Even stating this as a "value," it's *way* out of line with everything I've ever heard since my economics-major days (and one of my professors, Marty Feldman, was as anti-Social Security as you can get).
Now maybe I am just a horse with blinders (as this article purports) ... but these numbers seem as fishy as the Pentagon's budgetary line items.
July 12 2005, 18:11:43 UTC 6 years ago
I'd say it's alarmist, but it uses the Treasury's own data.
Using "unfunded obligations/liabilities" of Medicare and SS as a basis for a GAAP analysis of "true" deficit/debt seems to imply counting future shortfalls in funding for these two programs as part of a formula to determine an annual operating deficit.
I don't think they're counting future shortfalls as much as the receipts owed to those trust funds. I'm not sure if the National Debt number that we see is just debt owed to foreign entities or the total debt owed to the domestic institutions of SS and Medicare.
You raise a good point. Could this be another attempt to "alarm" people to the "insolvency" of SS? I'm not sure.
I don't put the fault of the escalating budget deficit on SS but rather on the war and the unnecessary tax cuts.