Happy New Year … and Good Riddance to the Old One

Today marks the beginning of the new fiscal year, so budgeteers are all greeting each other with a cheery “happy new year.”

I think I speak for everyone when I say good riddance to fiscal 2009. Let’s hope that we never again see deficits of more than 10% of GDP.

I am still guessing that the 2009 deficit came in around $1.4 trillion. As for fiscal 2010, the only thing we can safely say is that the deficit, thus far, is less than $1 billion. But the day is young.

4 thoughts on “Happy New Year … and Good Riddance to the Old One”

  1. I can almost hear the Obama-Biden 2012 talking point now: “We cut the deficit in half (or by two thirds)!”

  2. I truly wish we could “safely say that the fiscal 2010 deficit, thus far, is less than $1 billion”. If only. I think you meant to type, “$1 trillion”; your fingers’ reluctance to do so is fully understandable. ..bruce..

    1. Hi Bruce — I didn’t express my little (very little?) joke as clearly as I hoped. I did indeed mean $1 billion, but only in the sense of 2010 year to date. Which, as of this morning, was only a few hours. Now that it’s mid-afternoon, however, we may have breached the $1 billion mark. But we’re probably still under $2 billion.

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