{"id":1580,"date":"2011-07-07T23:18:28","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T03:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2011-07-07T23:23:28","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T03:23:28","slug":"newsbusters-incomplete-analysis-of-reuters-incomplete-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"Newsbusters&#8217; incomplete analysis of Reuters&#8217; incomplete analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsbusters.org\/blogs\/noel-sheppard\/2011\/07\/07\/reuters-ignores-projected-august-debt-payments-exclusive-about-preven\">http:\/\/www.newsbusters.org\/blogs\/noel-sheppard\/2011\/07\/07\/reuters-ignores-projected-august-debt-payments-exclusive-about-preven<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So NewsBusters thinks Reuters is &#8220;spinning&#8221; the US Debt Ceiling story by not pointing out that the US Treasury will have the ~$20 Billion to pay the interest on the debt in August. \u00a0With $175 billion coming in, $20 billion for interest and $49 billion for Social Security, no problem!<\/p>\n<p>Now what NewsBusters left out (and\/or doesn&#8217;t understand)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The $49 billion for social security is due on August 2nd, not August 30th. \u00a0 The monthly revenue comes in spread out during the month.<\/li>\n<li>The Treasury doesn&#8217;t have to just pay the interest, they have to deal with the existing <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">debt that matures each month<\/span>, especially short term Treasury Bills. \u00a0T-Bills are <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">sold at a discount<\/span> without periodic interest payments. \u00a0 \u00a0As the T-Bill matures, the face value is due, and when they refund the existing T-Bill, that will increase the face value of the existing debt which they can&#8217;t do.<\/li>\n<li>There is a lot more to the Federal government than interest and Social Security. \u00a0Most of it is legally required by contract, not discretionary. \u00a0 Taking the numbers from my <a href=\"http:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=684\">prior research<\/a> and dividing by 12<br \/>\n&#8211; Medicare &#8211; $40 billion \u00a0($66 billion left)<br \/>\n&#8211; Peacetime military &#8211; $50 billion ($16 billion left)<br \/>\n&#8211; War in Iraq\/Afghanistan &#8211; $10 billion \u00a0($6 billion left)<br \/>\n&#8211; Veteran&#8217;s Pensions &#8211; $5 billion \u00a0 ($1 billion left)<br \/>\n&#8211; VA hospitals &#8211; $5 billion &#8211; oops, sorry veterans (-4 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; Pell Grants &#8211; $3 billion &#8211; sorry kids &#8211; (-7 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; SSI &#8211; $4 billion payments to very poor disabled or retirees (-11 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; Medicaid &#8211; $25 billion &#8211; you states are on your own \u00a0(-$36 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; Interest on trust funds &#8211; $15 billion &#8211; no more IOUs in the lock box (-$51 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; WIC \/ Food Stamps \/ School lunches &#8211; $8 billion &#8211; (-59 billion)<br \/>\n&#8211; Section 8 housing &#8211; $1.3 billion<br \/>\n&#8211; Unemployment insurance &#8211; $8 billion (+loans to bankrupt state funds)&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Then there is matter if the ~2 million non-military government employees getting a paycheck. \u00a0 If you lay them off, then they go on unemployment, so you still are paying them. \u00a0Who will run the prisons, the TSA, the parks, the FBI, CIA, NSA, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, INS, Customs, NOAA\/NWS, USGS (Earthquake\/Tsunami warnings), Secret Service, Railroad safety, mine safety, nuclear safety, food safety, disease prevention, Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, Federal courts and Attorney offices. \u00a0 If you pay some of them, then you can&#8217;t pay for some of the above list. \u00a0You don&#8217;t pay hospitals for Medicare, they stop taking patients and\/or go out of business. \u00a0 Don&#8217;t make required Section 8 housing payments, the landlord kicks out the tenants onto the street.<\/li>\n<li>The US government doesn&#8217;t work on a monthly budget &#8211; around April 2012, there will be a large outflow for tax refunds &#8211; if there is no money in the treasury, there is no money for tax refunds<\/li>\n<li>30 year bonds mature in groups every 3 months and have to be paid off or refunded with new debt &#8211; August is one of those months \u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.treasurydirect.gov\/indiv\/research\/indepth\/tbonds\/res_tbond_rates.htm\">http:\/\/www.treasurydirect.gov\/indiv\/research\/indepth\/tbonds\/res_tbond_rates.htm<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s a huge problem with no obvious solution. \u00a0 \u00a0The biggest &#8220;fix&#8221; is to increase revenue without changing taxes &#8211; meaning get people off the unemployment roles and going back to work (but not at jobs being paid by the government). \u00a0 But even that will take several years to catch up, and we don&#8217;t have years.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"line-height: 20px;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.newsbusters.org\/blogs\/noel-sheppard\/2011\/07\/07\/reuters-ignores-projected-august-debt-payments-exclusive-about-preven So NewsBusters thinks Reuters is &#8220;spinning&#8221; the US Debt Ceiling story by not pointing out that the US Treasury will have the ~$20 Billion to pay the interest on the debt in August. \u00a0With $175 billion coming in, $20 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/?p=1580\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-politics","category-tax-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1584,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streamingradioguide.com\/startingover\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}