Mr. Speaker, Deficit Day is the symbolic day each calendar year when the Federal Government runs out of money and begins adding to the already enormous debt. Despite the $2.7 trillion the government is estimated to collect this year from…
Mr. Speaker, Deficit Day is the symbolic day each calendar year when the Federal Government runs out of money and begins adding to the already enormous debt. Despite the $2.7 trillion the government is estimated to collect this year from taxes, tariffs, fees, and other sources on a calendar-year basis, the money ran out this past Wednesday, September 25.
As the debt limit approaches in mid-October, the Federal Government continues to spend money it does not have on things that Americans do not want. Washington is projected to spend over $10 billion per day; and from this point until December 31, every dollar that it spends from this point on adds to our enormous national debt, which is already nearly $17 trillion. In the last 4 years, Congress has raised the debt limit seven times; and, today, the debt for every man, woman, and child averages over $53,000 per person.
Mr. Speaker, families and small businesses from across the United States are forced to live within their means. The Federal Government should be held to the same standard. If my friends back in my home State of Missouri can successfully balance their budgets each year, we should be capable of doing the right thing here in Washington, D.C. That is why I introduced an amendment to the Constitution to require the government to produce a balanced budget each and every year.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with all my House and Senate colleagues to pass a budget, to balance a budget, and to reduce our national debt.
[From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 2013]
Happy Deficit Day, Uncle Sam
(By James R. Harrigan and Antony Davies)
``Deficit Day'' is here again, marking the day the U.S.
government runs out of money and begins adding to the
nation's already-enormous debt. Despite the $2.7 trillion the
federal government collects every year from Americans in the
form of income, payroll, corporate, estate and excise taxes,
as well as tariffs, fees and other sources, on a calendar
year basis the money runs out Sept. 25, at around 3 p.m.
Washington is spending at the rate of over $10 billion per
day and from this point until Dec. 31 every dollar it spends
will add to the nation's debt--which is already nearly $17
trillion. (This is a separate calculation from the overall
federal debt limit, which will be reached in the next few
weeks.)
The closer the government comes to balancing the budget,
the further it pushes Deficit Day toward the end of the year.
So it's good news that the federal government runs out of
money 16 days later this year than last. But the underlying
reality is much less rosy: Despite the repeal of the payroll-
tax cut--a move that cost the average American family $1,000
this year--there are still 97 days left in the year for which
the federal government has no income.
Income, or no income, the government certainly won't stop
spending.
This is not fiscal responsibility. Through the payroll tax,
the government has simply raised tax revenues at the expense
of people who are already overtaxed. Had the government
simply held spending constant from last year, Deficit Day
would have been shifted 30 days into the future, not 16. But
a politician with more money in his hand is a politician who
will soon be on a spending spree.
In the 54 years since 1960, the federal government has
managed to achieve a unified budget surplus only six times.
And what, you may ask, is a ``unified budget?'' It's when the
government treats the $33 billion that it will borrow from
Social Security this year the same way it treats tax revenue,
instead of the debt it is. Imagine borrowing from your IRA
while you are still working and calling the borrowed money
income. The government managed to get by without such a fudge
only six times in half a century.
This year's Deficit Day of Sept. 25 is the fifth earliest
we have had since 1960, which puts current spending in grim
perspective. Since 2009, though, Deficit Day has actually
crept steadily forward at the rate of about two weeks per
year. If that trend continues, we can expect Deficit Day to
hit Dec. 31, finally, in about eight years. But that's
assuming Washington can go eight years without instituting
any new spending.
In a fiscally responsible world, the $2.7 trillion in taxes
the federal government will collect this year would provide a
hard limit on spending. But in the world our leaders have
created, the federal government will spend over 35% more than
this in 2013. After that it will just keep right on spending
money it does not have, passing the debt and the hard
political choices to citizens yet unborn and politicians yet
unelected.
There are only a few possible eventual outcomes if this
continues: The government will either print money to pay for
its deficits, unleashing unprecedented inflation; it will gut
social programs like Social Security and Medicare; or it will
dramatically increase taxes on everyone down to, and
including, the middle class.
The laws of mathematics can't be rewritten by political
desires or ``unified budget'' accounting gymnastics. Our
leaders need to face the truth and get our country's fiscal
house in order before Deficit Day becomes Bankruptcy Day.