TREASURY BULLETIN
FROM THE MAYBERRY NEWS SERVICE
FROM THE MAYBERRY NEWS SERVICE
Tuesday, May 30, 2002, the Washington Post issued an article headlined "Treasury to Borrow $1 Billion" that contained a single paragraph as follows:
The Treasury, in a sharp reversal of earlier borrowing plans, said it plans to borrow $ 1 billion this quarter to compensate for lower-than-expected income tax payments and to cover the cost of this year's economic stimulus package. The Treasury predicted in January that it would retire $ 89 billion of the national debt in the April-June quarter. This quarter will mark the first time since 1995 that the government needed to borrow in the April-June quarter, when it is usually flush with cash from income tax payments.
What is so surprising about this article is that it's obvious that the Washington Post doesn't pay much, if any, attention to the postings of the US Treasury. Postings that anyone can follow on the Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt web pages. Witness the following:
Punch up your computer calculator. It can handle all of the digits involved. If I had waited a couple of days, the results for the end of April would have been available so I could also post them on TUFF's (the Taxpayers Union) web site under "Important Numbers." That's where this table comes from.
You may note the following for yourself:
1 - The national debt has increased $198.6 billion since the close of fiscal 2001 with six more months to go.
2 - Borrowing from the public, what I choose to call "Investors," has increased $105 billion in the same period. This is where the Washington Post tells us an additional $1 billion in borrowing will occur in "the April-June quarter. Want to bet?
3 - When the Washington Post tells us that "The Treasury predicted in January that it would retire $89 billion of the national debt in the April-June quarter" the overall debt had already gone up $136 billion and that same "public" debt had already risen $55.1 billion by the close of December. Did the Washington Post report that? No.
4 - The "Entitlement" side of the national debt, what the government chooses to call "Intragovernmental Holdings" has risen $93.7 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2002. This is all surplus money borrowed/stolen from Social Security and other entitlements, plus interest added at no cost to the government.
5 - This is the first time since the Balanced Budget Act of November, 1997, that the government has utilized its Constitutional option of borrowing from the public (investors). Until this year, the "bond market" has been devoted to replacing maturing Treasury securities, not issuing additional.
The government has always had the ability to raise billions practically overnight by placing additional Treasury securities on the open market. There has never been justification in stealing Social Security or other entitlement surpluses except the fact that they do not pay annual cash interest on these obligations. They simply hand the entitlement more obligation bonds. Obligations that taxpayers must someday redeem. The Pay-It-Again, Sam scam.
The Washington Post may be correct when they say that "this quarter will mark the first time since 1995 that the government needed to borrow in the April-June quarter" but I'll bet that they got that from some bureaucrat rather than look it up in any record they keep or by going to the Treasury, the bank, for facts and verification. Our news people deal in opinion and hearsay. The Mayberry syndrome.
The Treasury, in a sharp reversal of earlier borrowing plans, said it plans to borrow $ 1 billion this quarter to compensate for lower-than-expected income tax payments and to cover the cost of this year's economic stimulus package. The Treasury predicted in January that it would retire $ 89 billion of the national debt in the April-June quarter. This quarter will mark the first time since 1995 that the government needed to borrow in the April-June quarter, when it is usually flush with cash from income tax payments.
What is so surprising about this article is that it's obvious that the Washington Post doesn't pay much, if any, attention to the postings of the US Treasury. Postings that anyone can follow on the Treasury's Bureau of Public Debt web pages. Witness the following:
Punch up your computer calculator. It can handle all of the digits involved. If I had waited a couple of days, the results for the end of April would have been available so I could also post them on TUFF's (the Taxpayers Union) web site under "Important Numbers." That's where this table comes from.
You may note the following for yourself:
1 - The national debt has increased $198.6 billion since the close of fiscal 2001 with six more months to go.
2 - Borrowing from the public, what I choose to call "Investors," has increased $105 billion in the same period. This is where the Washington Post tells us an additional $1 billion in borrowing will occur in "the April-June quarter. Want to bet?
3 - When the Washington Post tells us that "The Treasury predicted in January that it would retire $89 billion of the national debt in the April-June quarter" the overall debt had already gone up $136 billion and that same "public" debt had already risen $55.1 billion by the close of December. Did the Washington Post report that? No.
4 - The "Entitlement" side of the national debt, what the government chooses to call "Intragovernmental Holdings" has risen $93.7 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2002. This is all surplus money borrowed/stolen from Social Security and other entitlements, plus interest added at no cost to the government.
5 - This is the first time since the Balanced Budget Act of November, 1997, that the government has utilized its Constitutional option of borrowing from the public (investors). Until this year, the "bond market" has been devoted to replacing maturing Treasury securities, not issuing additional.
The government has always had the ability to raise billions practically overnight by placing additional Treasury securities on the open market. There has never been justification in stealing Social Security or other entitlement surpluses except the fact that they do not pay annual cash interest on these obligations. They simply hand the entitlement more obligation bonds. Obligations that taxpayers must someday redeem. The Pay-It-Again, Sam scam.
The Washington Post may be correct when they say that "this quarter will mark the first time since 1995 that the government needed to borrow in the April-June quarter" but I'll bet that they got that from some bureaucrat rather than look it up in any record they keep or by going to the Treasury, the bank, for facts and verification. Our news people deal in opinion and hearsay. The Mayberry syndrome.