SPLURGE ON: Federal Spending Through July Sets ANOTHER Record

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The federal government keeps outdoing itself when it comes to spending. Through July, federal spending set another record, clocking in at $3,727,014,000,000. That’s $3.7 TRILLION.

With any leverage to introduce meaningful spending cuts having dissipated with the obscene budget deal to suspend the debt ceiling for two years and add an extra $300 billion in spending over the next 10 years, it’s only going to get worse.

On the other side of the ledger are tax revenues, which have been falling of recent when measured in constant July 2019 dollars. The difference results in a deficit of $866,812,000,000 in the first 10 months of the fiscal year. With another two months to go, that deficit could easily pass the $1 trillion mark.

From CNS News:

“Before this year, the most that the federal government had ever spent in the first ten months of a fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when the Treasury spent $3,576,745,930,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars, adjusted using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator). […]

According to Table 3 in the Monthly Treasury Statement, the Department of Health and Human Services spent the most of any federal agency in the first ten months of fiscal 2019 ($1,005,897,000,000), the Social Security Administration spent the second most ($915,775,000,000), and the Department of Defense-Military Programs spent the third most ($540,435,000,000).”

The elephant in the room that few politicians ever seems to have the spine to address is mandatory entitlement spending. The Department of Health and Human Services (Medicare, Medicaid) alone has spent a TRILLION DOLLARS IN 10 MONTHS. The Social Security Administration is not that far behind, earning the silver medal for spending.

The Left’s favorite boogeyman, the Department of Defense, which is one of the core functions of government, places third. Even then, DOD spending is only about half the rate of DHHS.

The last time spending was this high, and deficits were growing this large, was in fiscal 2009 – in the middle of a severe recession and financial crisis that resulted in massive government bailouts and stimulus programs. A decade later, the economy is relatively healthy, unemployment is near historic lows, and historic stimulus is not in the conversation; yet the hole is getting deeper and deeper as the digger is on auto-pilot.

It’s imperative that Republicans take control of congress in 2020, but, more importantly, that voters hold those majorities’ feet to the fire and demand that reforms are made so our great-grandchildren are not burdened with debts because we couldn’t grow a spine and make tough decisions.