BIDEN ECONOMY: Federal Deficit Exploding As Economy Falling Apart

Americans are feeling the pain of massive inflation, high interest rates, high gas prices, high food prices, and no increase in wages but Big Media giants are somehow dumfounded. 

At Axios the headline reads: Federal deficit unexpectedly set to double this year

At the Washington Post: U.S. deficit explodes even as economy grows – A strong economy usually reduces the deficit. Not this time.

Points:

1) In the Axios title: UNEXPECTEDLY??? Only by people with blinders on.

2) In the Axios URL: “DESPITE ECONOMIC GROWTH”??? Or, per the WaPo headline: “STRONG ECONOMY”??? 

Horse manure. In the six most recent quarters (i.e., during the past year and a half), the economy has grown by just 1.9 percent in real terms, per GDP Table 1.1.6 at bea.gov interactive tables:

2Q 23 — $20,387 T

4Q 21 — $20.006 T

That’s an average of just over 0.3 percent per quarter. (BTW, it’s only fair to include the contractions in the first two quarters of 2022 because the media gatekeepers insisted we weren’t in a recession.) Axios thought better of insulting our intelligence in their headline, but the URL shows how ignorant they originally were, as the WaPo article they linked misled them before a bit of sanity prevailed.

There is no mention of “economic growth” in the Axios article, since there barely is any.

But the WaPo article’s delusion is that we’re experiencing “robust overall economic growth,” that the deficit surge is “unexpected,” and that “The surge in red ink has confounded many economists’ expectations.”

3) In the real world, no one is surprised. The grave deficit growth problem is about half due to declining collections and half due to increased spending:

https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts0723.pdf

You don’t get a 10 percent decline in receipts in a “strong” or “robust” economy.

4) Finally, did anyone really think that rising interest rates would carry no consequences for Uncle Sam?

What a mess the Biden economy is in.