Fiscal snapshot: April ends with $373 billion in spending. Not bad, but some dark clouds are gathering.

Okay, so here's the end of April fiscal snapshot. It's not great news. It's not a disaster (yet), but it's not great in my opinion.

For the month of April the Federal Government spent $373 billion. That surpassed last April by $3 billion. Year-over-year Federal spending is up by $91 billion. That's the good news. We're on track at this pace to hit, almost, $4.3 trillion in total top-line spending for the fiscal year. That would be the first real increase since 2009.

That's good.

Here's the problem: Spending is stalling. Just about a month ago we were $110 billion over last year. The pace of spending over FY 2014 is slowing. This is not surprising because since mid-March Treasury has been running under  the debt ceiling constraint. These idiots in Congress still have not done anything  on the debt ceiling or the budget and who knows what kinds of measures, if any, Lew is using to pay the bills and that may not be able to last forever.

Furthermore, both CBO and OMB were predicting closer to $200 billion in spending above last year. We're coming in nowhere near that. I'm sure the morons over at Fix the Debt are elated. Jerks.

Now for the bad news (if you listen to other MMT economists). The deficit through the fiscal year so far is a paltry $252 billion. That's only 1.4% of GDP. The freakin' budget is almost in balance. The White House should be popping champagne corks, but they're too stupid to realize and also too stupid to understand that this is unequivocally NOT a good thing. Morons as well.

The top-line stall in spending is worrisome, at least to  me. Without a concomitant increase in non-government indebtedness, then it could mean trouble for the economy/stocks. Furthermore, higher private sector debt accumulation is not anything to cheer about, except maybe if you're a banker. It's just that we can go a while before debt service levels reach the tipping point, like where they were in 2007.

All data from the Daily Treasury Statement, of course. Remember, I teach a course on this, so if you want to learn how to do all this analysis and be able to read that Daily Treasury Statement then sign up for my course. It's well worth it. There's one coming up this Saturday. It's online. If you want to enroll please go to the link below.

Daily Treasury Statement course, Saturday, May 9.

USA Democracy Burns, While Uncoordinated Activists Fiddle With Tactics, Not Operations

Forget the manufactured Fiscal Cliff. We're facing a Freedom Cliff!  Time to contact your Senator and Representative again.

If you're not aware of some of the policy bills being discussed in Congress, don't be ashamed to wet your pants, grind your teeth of suffer apoplexy when you read the details.  As long as enough eventually settle on a cold resolve, we'll be okay.  Please discuss this with your neighbors, since you're unlikely to see it on your local media.  It's potentially bigger than TARP, precisely because it's so insidious.

Several forms of a Regulatory Accountability Act are wending their way through Congress now, spearheaded by a bodyguard of free-spending lobbyists from Wall St. Essentially, these bills would allow the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget to review any significant rule, guidance, or policy instituted by independent financial agencies. These bills would give financial lobbies significant influence over all the independent agencies which are currently independent from them.

According to BetterMarkets, American's for Financial Reform, and OMB Watch [private emails] these bills would substantially curtail the jurisdiction of at least six Senate committees: Commerce, Science and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Agriculture; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Homeland Security and Government Affairs (plus, of course, the Appropriations Committee and subcommittees). Finance and Judiciary aren’t listed but they may have shared jurisdiction over some of the areas covered by these agencies.

Because of some push back already, there are rumors that S. 1606 might be the compromise result. Of course, ”pretty terrible” rather than “egregiously terrible” is what passes for “compromise” these days.

The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA, Senate 1606) is in some ways even worse than an alternative, S 3468, so if you hear anyone talking about it as a compromise please consider whether it is compromise, or capitulation.


Senate bill 1606 (the RAA) is an awful bill. AFR has posted opposition letters to the essentially identical to House & Senate bills.

http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/blogs/wp-content/ourfinancialsecurity.org/uploads/2011/11/AFR_RAA_Letter_Draft-1.pdf

http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/blogs/wp-content/ourfinancialsecurity.org/uploads/2012/09/AFR-Oppose-S.-3486-9-6-12.pdf

The trench warfare over YOUR future continues - while you're distracted over immigration, voting rights, and other easily trumpeted distractions from the real show - power.