April was best month in history for U.S. budget

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SlugSlinger

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And the liberals can't explain it! Think lower taxes! While the media and the democrats are focusing on fake news creation with Russia scandals, dossiers paid for by the Clintons, and anything else the mindless public will swallow up, Trump is hard at work making things better for Americans. MAGA!

The federal government took in a record tax haul in April en route to its biggest-ever monthly budget surplus, the Congressional Budget Office said, as a surging economy left Americans with more money in their paychecks — and this more to pay to Uncle Sam.

All told the government collected $515 billion and spent $297 billion, for a total monthly surplus of $218 billion. That swamped the previous monthly record of $190 billion, set in 2001.

CBO analysts were surprised by the surplus, which was some $40 billion more than they’d guessed at less than a month ago.

Analysts said they’ll have a better idea of what’s behind the surge as more information rolls in, but for now said it looks like individual taxpayers are paying more because they have higher incomes.

“Those payments were mostly related to economic activity in 2017 and may reflect stronger-than-expected income growth in that year,” the analysts said in their monthly budget review. “Part of the strength in receipts also may reflect larger-than-anticipated payments for economic activity in 2018. The reasons for the added revenues will be better understood as more detailed information becomes available later this year.”

Official numbers are due out from the Treasury Department in a few days, but the CBO is usually accurate to within a couple billion dollars.
 
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Braggs

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One theory is inflation. By keeping the prime interest rate low, you flood the economy with money (people take out more loans due to low interest rates and in fractional reserve banking, the money is created out of thin air) which devalues the dollars already in circulation. This requires more dollars to purchase the same product (including people/paychecks). Higher wages means tax revenue would be higher too. Sounds like a delayed way of the government collecting more revenue to repay its debts and why they can always guarantee their debts, because they can always inflate the dollar to make the debts meaningless.
 

OKCHunter

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One theory is inflation. By keeping the prime interest rate low, you flood the economy with money (people take out more loans due to low interest rates and in fractional reserve banking, the money is created out of thin air) which devalues the dollars already in circulation. This requires more dollars to purchase the same product (including people/paychecks). Higher wages means tax revenue would be higher too. Sounds like a delayed way of the government collecting more revenue to repay its debts and why they can always guarantee their debts, because they can always inflate the dollar to make the debts meaningless.

I thought about this also. But, I haven’t noticed anything I routinely purchase that has gone up in price (requiring more dollars). In fact, I’ve noticed the opposite in some cases - the price has dropped.
 

doctorjj

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One theory is inflation. By keeping the prime interest rate low, you flood the economy with money (people take out more loans due to low interest rates and in fractional reserve banking, the money is created out of thin air) which devalues the dollars already in circulation. This requires more dollars to purchase the same product (including people/paychecks). Higher wages means tax revenue would be higher too. Sounds like a delayed way of the government collecting more revenue to repay its debts and why they can always guarantee their debts, because they can always inflate the dollar to make the debts meaningless.
How is this different than the last 20 years? That’s been the fiscal policy for along time.
 

tRidiot

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This was my thought... we're always surpassing previous records over time due to inflation. Those reports don't usually interest me all that much, when you start adjusting figures for inflation over decades, it makes more sense.

Looking at one inflation calculator, it looks like the $190B from 2001 in current dollars has the spending power of $268B. So that $218B, while it is encouraging, can definitely be spun as overly notable. In other instances reports will "adjust for inflation" if it fits a certain narrative - on both sides.
 

SlugSlinger

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One comment about inflation. Obama printed a lot of money using the quantitative easing, and there is a lot of extra cash available. This cash has sat on the sidelines during Obama’s rule because no one had confidence in the economy. That has now changed with Trump. With lower tax rates and high economic optimism, people and companies are spending money. However, the fed must stay ahead of the inflation curve if we don’t want some massive inflation numbers. So far they’ve done an ok job managing rates, but we could be in for a surprise with some high inflation if the fed fails to act quickly.
 

SlugSlinger

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By raising interest, you mean? In effect to slow borrowing?
Exactly. Low interest rates should stimulate borrowing, but that didn’t happen in the 8 years obama was ruler. Now the economy is starting to heat up, the rates need to go up to manage the growth. It all goes back to basic economics and supply and demand.
 

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