I will officially start the holiday celebrations next Thursday, and I promise to post only nice friendly comments during the season of good cheer. But we're not there yet, so I just have to take exception to this item from Forbes, describing the October and end of fiscal-year 2006 deficit report issued by the Treasury on Monday:
The government posted a budget deficit of 49.3 bln usd in October, compared with expectations of a 49 bln usd deficit and the 47.4 bln usd deficit in October last year.
Receipts totaled a record high 167.7 bln usd, while outlays totaled 217 bln usd, also a record.
I added the emphasis, because that is what I came to complain about. To wit, is that "record" stuff at all meaningful? Don't think so. Here's a picture of annual nominal receipts and outlays, since 1970:
Rare is the period without a record. Perhaps if we adjust for inflation?
You see a bit more in the way of non-records there -- around the times of recessions, in particular -- but the standard story is ever upward and to the right. Not surprising, since that is also the story of income growth.
The informative statistic, of course, is not the dollar size of outlays and receipts, but their magnitudes relative to the size the economy, or GDP:
No records there, though I will forgive you if you choose to fret about that gap between the green line and the red line.
See? The good cheer has started already.