Last week the monthly Treasury report was released. This report details how we spend out money by department. The headline could have been "US Government Stands at $19.938 Trillion in Debt. They could have said that, except we didn't crack $20 trillion in debt so it wasn't "newsworthy." This is written partially in jest. We see peak revenue during April, June, September and December when quarterly tax receipts are submitted. The rest of the "world" is anticipating a surplus next month, so we will not break through $20 trillion in debt until January. This is sort-sighted. We have seen declining corporate taxes. We have seen increasing individual taxes. We have a problem that is being ignored.
We saw nearly 200 billion in revenue taken in during November - The second largest November ever. Last year we set a record for November revenue with 205 billion in taxes being raised. This year we saw $199.875 billion in taxes raised. Taxes have been rising ever since November of 2009, until this year. We have paid in 213 billion in individual taxes and 3 billion in corporate taxes this fiscal year (the past two months.)We had seen 203 billion in individual taxes and 8 billion in corporate receipts at this same time last year. Individual have paid 10 billion dollars more in taxes and corporations have paid 6 billion dollars fewer in taxes this year.
Some months we pay more in taxes - some months less in taxes - than last year. We paid more in taxes during February, May, August, and October this year as compared to last year. While we paid less in taxes during November we paid more in taxes during October. So far this year we have paid an additional $5.5 Billion in taxes over the past two months.
What Gasoline Savings? The media was jumping for joy last year as gasoline prices were falling - hoping that the drop in one sector would spur spending in other sectors. Gasoline prices have been heading higher recently. The Monthly and Annual Retail Trade Survey (MARTS) data indicates that we are well off the height of the November 2012 spending level. The problem is that we "saved" $24 billion at the pump and gave Uncle Sam $38 billion more than we did during November 2012. We are out $14 billion dollars - there is "no saving."
We saw record spending for the Month of November. We saw 336 billion spent this past month. This is considerably higher than November 2015 and is even higher than what was spent during November 2012 when we saw almost 334 billion dollar spent during the month. The interest on the debt is $13 billion more this year than last year.
We are mortgaging our future. We have seen The Federal Debt spike by $2 trillion since Thanksgiving of 2014 when we had 17.9 trillion dollars in debt. It would have cost us $117 billion a month for 360 consecutive months to pay off the debt. If we say that we have 20% down on a mortgage the purchase price of this debt would be 25 Trillion dollars(Thing of a $250,000 home where you need a $200,000 Mortgage) if this is the case after 360 payments we would have paid $34.04 Trillion in mortgage payments. If we use the same 10% down rate that we used when we were at 18 trillion in debt our payment would total $37.08 Trillion. We are in more debt now. It is unpatriotic and irresponsible debt. Interest rates have dropped from 2 years ago. We have "saved" $7 trillion dollars by inaction. When interest rates climb higher we will not be so fortunate (today's calculations are based on an interest rate of 3.92%.)
It's the economy.