CBO: Feds Borrowing $4.8 billion Per Day in FY 2013. Here’s Some Numbers:

The federal government ran a deficit of $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2013 – October and November 2012 – amounting to $4.8 billion of borrowed money each day.

“The federal budget deficit was $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2013, $57 billion more than the shortfall recorded in October and November of last year,” CBOsaidin its Monthly Budget Review Friday.

This means that the government borrowed $4.8 billion for each calendar day so far in 2013. If the Treasury Department restricted its borrowing to only weekdays, its per day average would jump to $6.5 billion per day thus far in fiscal year 2013.

CBO reported that federal revenues rose by $30 billion – a 10 percent increase over last year, but spending increased more, going up by $87 billion or 16 percent.

Overall, the two-month deficit figure was $57 billion higher than the October-November 2012 deficit.

CBO reported that shifts in when the government made certain payments accounted for some of the increase in spending.

Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were about seven percent higher — $8 billion than last year. Had these shifts in the timing of government spending not occurred, the two-month deficit figure would have been $8 billion lower than last year’s figure – about $227 billion.

In case you can’t do math, $4.8 billion dollars per day is about $1.75 TRILLION per year of new debt. 

That’s $1.75 TRILLION of new national debt by the end of Fiscal Year 2013, bringing our grand total to about $18 TRILLION of National Debt. And this is all before the behemoth, Affordable Health Care for America Act (Obamacare) hits the books. 

Extrapolate the $4.8 billion per day over Obama’s next four years and you have $7 TRILLION in new debt added over Obama’s second term, bringing the National Debt total to just over $23 TRILLION at the end of FY2016, and this is under the assumption that we don’t increase the rate of spending or start any new wars. 

Just in case you were wondering, that’s twelve zeros or 150% of our current (FY2012) GDP. 

There’s only a few ways out of this mess, here’s some of the most likely:

1. Balance the budget, pay back loans. Increase tax revenues to surpass outlays (end deficit spending and bring in a surplus) and keep that static for long enough to pay back over $16 trillion dollars plus interest plus incurred costs during payoff time. While there is no final agreement in place, President Obama and Congress have agreed to only a about $800 billion in increased revenues and a few other adjustments that might increase revenues by around $1 trillion dollars, yet they will most likely not cut spending, which is due to increase, meaning that we’d still have a fiscal deficit for the year, adding to our National Debt.

2. Default on all loans. This one is tricky, seeing as how a large portion of our loans are actually held by citizens/private investors/etc. But in theory, we can default on all our loans and have creditors seize government assets in lieu of payments. This would mean the privatization or repossession of gov’t buildings, cars, equipment, and even the possible sell off of Federal land (yes, including national parks). While this sounds like a quasi-anarcho-capitalist dream, the reality is that foreign governments would own a lot of very, very valuable land in this country.

3. Print more money. If you haven’t noticed, this is what we are currently doing and will continue to do. And when we can no longer borrow due to a debt ceiling or because every other creditor has cut us off, we will just increase the printing. 

4. Don’t do anything. Sounds crazy but how many countries have actually paid of their national debt in full in the last 100 years? Don’t be silly, “WE OWN A TANK!” Lots of them! In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that we own the world’s largest military, who we will continue to pay with our freshly minted federal reserve notes.  

@Suga_Shane