Anonymous ID: 380ba3 Feb. 13, 2019, 2:16 p.m. No.5160072   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Recession Alert: Treasury Receipts Turn Negative For The First Time Since The Trump Election

 

On the surface, today's monthly budget statement showed some good news: in December the US Treasury brought in total receipts of $313 billion (and $771 billion for the fiscal year to date), versus outlays of only $326 billion (and $1.09 trillion for fiscal 2019), resulting in a deficit of $14 billion, modestly worse than the $11 billion deficit expected (and better than 2017's December deficit of $23 billion). The not so good news is that for the fiscal year through Dec.31, the total US budget deficit was $319 billion, 40% greater than the $227 billion deficit for the prior year, and set to keep rising this year to $1.1 trillion.

 

However, a more concerning data point emerges when looking at the annual change in the rolling 12 month total. It is here that we find that for the LTM period ended Dec 31, total government receipts were $3.33 trillion. This number was 0.4% lower than the $3.344 trillion reported one year ago.

 

Why is this important? Because as the chart below shows, every time since at least 1970 when government receipts have turned negative on an annual basis, the US was on the cusp of, or already in, a recession. Indicatively, the last time government receipts turned negative was just after the Trump presidential victory, which however managed a dead cat bounce in the subsequent two years, before again turning negative at the end of 2018. The time prior to that that receipts turned negative: July of 2008.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-13/recession-alert-treasury-receipts-turn-negative-first-time-trump-election