From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Thu Jul 09 1998 - 05:32:13 MDT
VirgilT7@aol.com wrote:
>Our economy is doing wonderfully, we're turning in budget surpluses
I never quite got this "budget surplus" thing; people keep saying that
the budget is balanced or even has a surplus, yet the national debt
on 7/7/98[1] was:
$5,530,116,137,980.45
And a year earlier was:
$5,355,915,100,573.58
So in a year the national debt has increased by about $175,000,000,000
yet there's a balanced budget? Maybe this government math is just too
hard for me, but I don't think my bank would be too happy if I were to
claim that I'd earnt as much as I'd spent, yet go $175 billion further
into debt.
For the national debt not to increase by the end of the fiscal year,
the government have to find at least $120,000,000,000 from somewhere;
in the same period last year they overspent by around $60,000,000,000.
Where's the surplus?
Mark
[1] see http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm; that's the
latest date available as I write.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:19 MST