Cyclical or Structural?
September 16, 2012 – The US federal government spent $369 billion in August, but only received $179 billion in revenue. The resulting $190 billion deficit was a record for any August and the third highest monthly deficit in the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30th.
Looking at this deficit another way, the federal government borrowed 51.6% of the dollars it spent in August. Consequently, the growth of the national debt continues to accelerate, as illustrated by the green bars in the following chart.
This chart also illustrates that the deficit – the gap between expenditures (red line) and revenue (blue line) – is not narrowing to any significant extent, which is a critically important observation. A persistent gap that is barely shrinking has never happened before.
Normally economic activity revives after a recession, which in turn leads to increased revenue for the federal government, like it did from 2004-2008 when the more rapid growth in revenue almost eliminated the deficit. But not this time. Revenue is increasing, but so are expenditures at almost the same rate. (more)
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