On May 20th at the corner of US 290 and Springdale Rd. in northeast Austin I found a Mexican hat (Ratibida columnifera) with an unusually crimped central column. On June 6th in Great Hills Park I found the columnar anomaly shown below.
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The federal budget deficit will hit $1.9 trillion this fiscal year, according to an updated projection released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office. That’s 27% – or $400 billion – larger than the agency estimated in February.
Looking longer term, the nation’s debt will approach $57 trillion in fiscal year 2034, nearly $2.5 trillion higher than previously projected, as spending on Social Security, Medicare and interest payments soar and revenues fail to keep pace. The growing imbalance is expected to loom large over upcoming congressional budget and tax battles.
Most of the spike in the fiscal 2024 deficit stems from four factors that are expected to boost projected spending. The largest is a $145 billion increase that’s partly due to changes the Biden administration made to student loan repayment plans and a new, proposed forgiveness program that would waive some accrued interest for millions of borrowers. The latter has yet to be finalized but could take effect as soon as this fall.
So yeah, just buy votes by showering billions of dollars on people, and make the public—that's you, folks—pay for the illegal scheme. You can read the rest of that dispiriting June 21st CNN article.
And if you're an American, each one of you now owes over $102,000 as your personal share of the national debt. That's up more than 9% from just one year ago, as you can confirm from U.S. Debt Per Capita, which tracks the debt each quarter since the end of 2011.
© 2024 Steven Schwartzman
