Tax Collections Soar, Deficit Plummets; Reporters, Liberal Economists Hardest Hit

I've been meaning to link Bizzy Blog on this for a while. Old news by now, but worth reading if you haven't gotten to it.

Hug a liberal economist. He needs it-- plus, he's probably all soft and squishy like a plush toy.

* Collections — Up 11.3% for the year. Taylor failed to note the number ($385 billion) and the status (all-time record) of April’s collections. Thanks to those record collections, receipts in this fiscal year thus far are up by a lot more than the 9% I was using. It would be nice to think that the 11%-plus increase will hold for the rest of the year, but even 10% would be impressive.

* The Deficit — Down 55% compared to this time last year. The numbers through seven months would seem to point to a full-year deficit that will probably be lower than even the CBO’s revised number of $150 billion. Replicating last year’s $64 billion deficit during the final five months of last year would lead to a full-year deficit of $147 billion, and the trends heading into this year’s final five months appear to be much more favorable.

Now to the timing: Let’s just say that it’s mighty convenient that the CBO released its report on a Friday, when the House was not in session and the Senate convened for all of 51 minutes. It’s also quite convenient that CBO didn’t mention that April’s collections were an alltime record in its report.

If the “nonpartisan” CBO’s goal was to get minimal news coverage, it succeeded nicely...

Indeed, it succeeded beyond all expectations.

Bizz y Blog also takes an AP "reporter" to task for deliberately failing to report, or only reporting in the usually-unread tail-end of an article, the fact that April's collections were an all-time record, and the April surplus was second-best only to the still-getting-the-benefit-of-the-Clinton-tech-bubble April 2001 numbers.

And Bizzy's also noticed the MSM's reluctance to cover the greatest bull run in the markets since.... Herbert Hoover.

Ah, well. There are only two certainties in life: death and the "Republican tax."

[W]e've got to accept we will always, as a country, have to pay a "tax" on having a Republican president in office, because the media, through relentlessly negative coverage of Republcian economies, will sabotage consumer confidence and thus reduce the actual strength of the economy (not just the perception thereof) a fraction of a percent or so.

After the jump, a re-post, back from the days when I was funny.

Back in 2004, when the GDP busted a nut with a huge 8% annualized growth rate (later revised down to a still-eyepopping 6%+), I felt awfully sorry for the Times' crank economist Paul Krugman. Since he wrote weekly about the imminent collapse of the US economy (and the nation's descent into a junta-led banana republic), and certainly would not lower himself to write about actual facts regarding strong economic growth, what could he write about?

Even with the economy blazing, he was required to post two columns per week; how on earth could he fill that space while avoiding the embarrassment of an economy defying his decline-and-debacle predictions?

So I proposed a list of columns Krugman could write about. I offer them yet again (some old references deleted, some new ones added), in the hopes that Krugman will avoid further shaming himself. These proposed titles have been carefully hand-crafted to provide Mr. Krugman with interesting, engaging topics to shriek hysterically about; but I've taken the greatest care to insure that not a one of them actually implicates Mr. Krugman's asserted expertise in economics. I am, as they say, a compassionate conservative.

Proposed Column Titles for Paul Krugman Which Avoid Any Mention of Economics

* That "New Car Smell" -- What Is That, and Why Doesn't Some Madison Avenue Wizard Make a Cologne Out of It?

* Short Men Make Better Lovers (or, At Least, Not as Bad as You Might Think)

* In Praise of Kurt Rambis

* What I'm Watching Right Now-- Becker

* If You've Never Had A 90mph Fastball Handjob From A Truck-Stop Waitress, Brother, You Are Missing Out On Life Itself

* Rethinking the 11th Amendment and Nineteenth Century Jurisprudence Regarding State Sovereign Immunity to Citizen Lawsuits

* I Remember When Stamps Cost a Nickel

* Steely Dan-- Loved Steely, Hated Dan

* Ben Gazarra On My Mind

* Wearing a Beard To Partly Disguise The Fact You Have A Weak Jawline And Not Terribly Striking Features (co-authored by Ace of Spades)

* Breaking the White Supremacist Code: Crypto-racist Messages in the Lyrics of Wilson-Phillips

* Duel in the Deep: The Naval Strategies of Admirals Nimitz and Yamamoto

* A Comparative Etymology of Etruscan and Basque Word Fragments

* Vagina (A Love Story)

* The Most Dangerous Progressive Voice in America Today: Jm J. Bullock

* Frequent Washing With An Antibacterial Soap Can Cure You of the "Swamp ass" Problem

* Why Would My Sister Jude Think That I'd Want the Fucking Special-Edition DVD of Under Siege 2: Dark Territory as a Birthday Present? What, Like I'm Some Fucking Big Eric Bogosian Fan or Something?

* Hillary Rodham Clinton: Nothing But Class

* Building the High-End Stereophonic Audiosystem That's Right for You

* Pretty, Quick!-- Paul Krugman's Ultimate List of Five-Minute Makeovers

* "Morning Thunder" Tea: Pure, Unadulterated Dogshit in a Mug

* Retrofitting Your 1969 Camaro With a Rear Spoiler From a 1977 Corvette

* Great Licks: Paul's Classic-Rock LP Collection

* The Other Melissa: That Chick Who Went Blind on Little House On the Prairie Still Gives Me Boners

And finally:

* The Great Unravelling: An Autobiography

posted by Ace at 04:07 PM

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