Stocks and News
Home | Week in Review Process | Terms of Use | About UsContact Us
   Articles Go Fund Me All-Species List Hot Spots Go Fund Me
Week in Review   |  Bar Chat    |  Hot Spots    |   Dr. Bortrum    |   Wall St. History
Stock and News: Hot Spots
  Search Our Archives: 
 

 

Wall Street History

https://www.gofundme.com/s3h2w8

AddThis Feed Button

   

05/31/2013

The New CBO Forecast

The Deficit Picture...an update from my 2/22/13 piece

I’ve been writing in my “Week in Review” column of the dangers of the talk that the budget deficit is being normalized...that deficits are coming down and would be expected to fall if the economy grows at a respectable pace and spending is held in check. Below I show how a revised May outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the deficit will indeed now fall to $378 billion by fiscal 2015 (after four years of $1 trillion+ deficits 2009-2012), down from its February estimate for F2015 of $430 billion. [The improving economy, including the ongoing recovery in the housing market, is leading to larger than expected revenue gains, augmented by large dividends paid back to the U.S. Treasury by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.]

While such projections can be way off, even just two years into the future, I also point out how the deficit then explodes all over again by the end of the CBO’s latest 10-year forecast, and their May revisions confirm this, though instead of a deficit for F2022 of $957 billion, the CBO now projects $889 billion. This is because of entitlements and more normalized interest rates.

The point being it is going to be easy for Congress not to make the hard decisions needed on entitlements because they can tell their constituents, ‘Hey, the deficit is falling!’

It’s depressing to some of us. We need to act to save the future now.

CBO’s Baseline Budget Projections ($billions)...REVISED as of May 2013

                              A2012     2013     2015      2022

Revenues              2,450     2,813     3,399     4,732

Outlays
 Mandatory            2,031       2,020      2,326     3,470
 Discretionary         1,285       1,213      1,187     1,386
 Net Interest             220          223         264        764
     Total                 3,537       3,455     3,777     5,620

Deficit (-)             -1,087        -642        -378       -889      

Notes:

Figures for 2012 are actual...fiscal year 10/1-9/30

The CBO assumes GDP growth of 1.4% fourth quarter to fourth quarter in 2013, then 3.4% in Q4 2014. From 2015-2018, GDP is est. at 3.6% annually, but 2.2% from 2019-2023. Regarding this last item, the CBO comments:

“For the second half of the coming decade, CBO does not attempt to predict the cyclical ups and downs of the economy; rather, CBO assumes that GDP will stay at its maximum sustainable level. On that basis, CBO projects that both actual and potential real GDO will grow at an average rate of 2 ¼ percent a year between 2019 and 2023. That pace is much slower than the average growth rate of potential GDP since 1950. The main reason is that the growth of the labor force will slow down because of the retirement of the baby boomers and an end to the long-standing increase in women’s participation in the labor force. CBO also projects that the unemployment rate will fall to 5.2 percent by 2023 and that inflation and interest rates will stay at about their 2018 levels throughout the 2019-2023 period.”

Core CPI is forecast to rise just 2.2-2.3 percent from 2015-2023.    

But in looking at the above, two things should obviously stand out; the explosion in Mandatory outlays and Net Interest expense.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for about 75% of current mandatory outlays and that percentage will just keep rising with the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

When it comes to interest expense, for 2012 the average rate on a 3-month T-bill was 0.10% and 1.8% for the ten-year T-note.

Of course these have been held down artificially by the Federal Reserve and the CBO projects a normalization of interest rates to the following:

2015-2018

Three-month T-bills 2.2%
Ten-year T-notes 4.5%

2019-2023

Three-month T-bills 4.0%
Ten-year T-notes 5.2%

And you see the result...net interest expense explodes to $764 billion* by 2022 from the current $223 billion. That’s criminal...but it’s a direct result of the exploding national debt.

*The February CBO estimate pegged F2022 net interest at $795 billion.

Source: CBO.gov

Wall Street History returns in two weeks.

Brian Trumbore   

 



AddThis Feed Button

 

-05/31/2013-      
Web Epoch NJ Web Design  |  (c) Copyright 2016 StocksandNews.com, LLC.

Wall Street History

05/31/2013

The New CBO Forecast

The Deficit Picture...an update from my 2/22/13 piece

I’ve been writing in my “Week in Review” column of the dangers of the talk that the budget deficit is being normalized...that deficits are coming down and would be expected to fall if the economy grows at a respectable pace and spending is held in check. Below I show how a revised May outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the deficit will indeed now fall to $378 billion by fiscal 2015 (after four years of $1 trillion+ deficits 2009-2012), down from its February estimate for F2015 of $430 billion. [The improving economy, including the ongoing recovery in the housing market, is leading to larger than expected revenue gains, augmented by large dividends paid back to the U.S. Treasury by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.]

While such projections can be way off, even just two years into the future, I also point out how the deficit then explodes all over again by the end of the CBO’s latest 10-year forecast, and their May revisions confirm this, though instead of a deficit for F2022 of $957 billion, the CBO now projects $889 billion. This is because of entitlements and more normalized interest rates.

The point being it is going to be easy for Congress not to make the hard decisions needed on entitlements because they can tell their constituents, ‘Hey, the deficit is falling!’

It’s depressing to some of us. We need to act to save the future now.

CBO’s Baseline Budget Projections ($billions)...REVISED as of May 2013

                              A2012     2013     2015      2022

Revenues              2,450     2,813     3,399     4,732

Outlays
 Mandatory            2,031       2,020      2,326     3,470
 Discretionary         1,285       1,213      1,187     1,386
 Net Interest             220          223         264        764
     Total                 3,537       3,455     3,777     5,620

Deficit (-)             -1,087        -642        -378       -889      

Notes:

Figures for 2012 are actual...fiscal year 10/1-9/30

The CBO assumes GDP growth of 1.4% fourth quarter to fourth quarter in 2013, then 3.4% in Q4 2014. From 2015-2018, GDP is est. at 3.6% annually, but 2.2% from 2019-2023. Regarding this last item, the CBO comments:

“For the second half of the coming decade, CBO does not attempt to predict the cyclical ups and downs of the economy; rather, CBO assumes that GDP will stay at its maximum sustainable level. On that basis, CBO projects that both actual and potential real GDO will grow at an average rate of 2 ¼ percent a year between 2019 and 2023. That pace is much slower than the average growth rate of potential GDP since 1950. The main reason is that the growth of the labor force will slow down because of the retirement of the baby boomers and an end to the long-standing increase in women’s participation in the labor force. CBO also projects that the unemployment rate will fall to 5.2 percent by 2023 and that inflation and interest rates will stay at about their 2018 levels throughout the 2019-2023 period.”

Core CPI is forecast to rise just 2.2-2.3 percent from 2015-2023.    

But in looking at the above, two things should obviously stand out; the explosion in Mandatory outlays and Net Interest expense.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for about 75% of current mandatory outlays and that percentage will just keep rising with the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

When it comes to interest expense, for 2012 the average rate on a 3-month T-bill was 0.10% and 1.8% for the ten-year T-note.

Of course these have been held down artificially by the Federal Reserve and the CBO projects a normalization of interest rates to the following:

2015-2018

Three-month T-bills 2.2%
Ten-year T-notes 4.5%

2019-2023

Three-month T-bills 4.0%
Ten-year T-notes 5.2%

And you see the result...net interest expense explodes to $764 billion* by 2022 from the current $223 billion. That’s criminal...but it’s a direct result of the exploding national debt.

*The February CBO estimate pegged F2022 net interest at $795 billion.

Source: CBO.gov

Wall Street History returns in two weeks.

Brian Trumbore