{"id":6143,"date":"2014-07-12T00:09:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T00:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/07\/12\/meanwhile-the-budget-deficit-keep-shrinking\/"},"modified":"2014-07-12T00:09:22","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T00:09:22","slug":"meanwhile-the-budget-deficit-keep-shrinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6143","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile &#8230; the budget deficit keeps shrinking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Bad news tends to run laps around good news.<\/p>\n<p>People are drawn to negativity in a curious way. Positive developments? Oh, forget about it. We&#8217;ll get to the good stuff later &#8212; if we remember to think about it.<\/p>\n<p>I hereby want to present a bit of cheer amid all the tumult over child refugees, Israel vs. Hamas, Iraqi insurgents, impeachment, congressional lawsuit and anything else of late.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2014\/07\/wh-budget-deficit-will-drop-to-583-billion-108822.html?hp=l9<\/p>\n<p>The federal ran a <em>surplus<\/em> of $71 billion in June. There&#8217;s more. The annual budget deficit is going to hit &#8212; at most by some estimates &#8212; $583 billion for the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30; indeed, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of $492 billion.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s that surplus business that has me most intrigued.<\/p>\n<p>Could it be the spurt of new jobs, which reached 288,000 in June, producing more tax revenue for the Treasury? Might it be accompanied by a burst of new business activity, which generates even more revenue?<\/p>\n<p>Why, you would think we&#8217;d hear cheers from both sides of the political aisle.<\/p>\n<p>Didn&#8217;t happen. Nope. We&#8217;ve been fixated by that negativity thing. We respond to the bad news and shrug at the good news.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m no Pollyanna. I know we&#8217;ve got problems at home. We damn sure have them around the world. Our government is coping as best as it can, or one should hope.<\/p>\n<p>The budget deficit, which once was the Bogeyman of the Right, is being slain. It&#8217;s not gone yet. It&#8217;s still too great. It&#8217;s less than half of what it was when the current administration took over.<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ll hoist a cold one in honor of the good news.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bad news tends to run laps around good news. People are drawn to negativity in a curious way. Positive developments? Oh, forget about it. We&#8217;ll get to the good stuff later &#8212; if we remember to think about it. I hereby want to present a bit of cheer amid all the tumult over child refugees, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6143\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meanwhile &#8230; the budget deficit keeps shrinking<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,775,885,3195,3197,3381],"class_list":["post-6143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-budget-deficit","tag-cbo","tag-national-crises","tag-national-debt","tag-office-of-management-and-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}