The Federal Deficit Continues to Shrink — Somewhat

Let's start by rolling back salaries of House & Senate members, forcing them to pay a higher out of pocket co-pay on all medical services and needs, plus sharply cutting their retirement benefits.
If government has become too big then let's start cutting right there in Washington DC. I'd bet two bits that the suggested cuts would NEVER happen.They want to cut spending for education, seniors, etc., etc. but they themselves would refuse to throw any of their "benefits" into the pot to save even $1.

actually, daniel, 'growth' is not the miracle deficit cure... 'spending less than you bring in' is the miracle deficit cure.

What the heck...let's start few more wars, do more bail outs, send jobs oveseas...who will notice billion change when we are talking about trillions.

Completely misleading title. How about a new one, "Federal Deficit continues to run out of control, but is down slightly."

This is reminiscent of Jerry Seinfeld's joke about a man who was 1200 pounds and lost 400 pounds. What can you say to such a guy - "You look great"?

So why is Obama is asking for $1.3 trillion dollars?? Nothing shrinking there - except my take home pay! It's time to overthrow this government, tear it all down and start again - this crap is not working.

maybe it is because of the budget Obamas administration passes every year... oh yeah I forgot, we are $16,000,000,000,000.00 in debt and there HASNT EVEN BEEN A BUDGET IN 3 YEARS

To bad most don't understand the difference between deficit and debt

It is mind-boggling that anyone considers a 4-month deficit of $349 BILLION good news.

Who cares who caused the deficits? Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, President all had their contribution to the problem. How about those in congress start doing their job, and stop rubber-stamping all the spending? How about the president vetoing bills that he doesn't agree with instead of signing and complaining about the contents?

you are spending more than what you are collecting. what is so hard to understand?

I worked from the Government as a Senior Auditor for about 30 year. The very first thing I learned was just because Government issues Reports and generates computer printouts does not necessarily mean the products are accurate. In fact, a large percentage of Government reports whether issued internally or to the public contain numerous errors and misleading statement. Believe if or not some are politically driven. You should take this into consideration before presenting such information to the public.

Deficit spending can't go on forever. More and more of our budget is just to pay off the interest on the debt. We are getting ourselves in serious trouble. When are we going to have a balanced budget, let alone start paying off the enormous debt that we already have?

Their are several ways to cut our deficit which are to increase private sector jobs,cut wasteful spending and cut fraud out of medicare and medicade and all other goverment entitlements plus more people will be paying in to the system and fewer people will need unemployment payments and foodstamps plus they will be able to pay back student loans.This also helps the states as they will also get more tax revenue without cutting services and colleges will raise the tuition rate at a slower rate.People will be able to buy a house or to make payments on the house if they currently are buying one.

I went to my local drug store and asked if I could get some of the same Stuff you people have. They told me that I had to go to Washington D.C. for that particular prescription. It's called a "Spin Pill". Especially made for the public

The monies that are allocated to help other Nations for humanity purposes could very well be spent at home and improve our infrastructure and provide additional employment to hundreds of out-of-work people which in turn would lower the deficit.

Like saying rain forecast is 3 inches tomorrow compared to 4 inches yesterday.
The Liberal Press really knowa how to spin it.

We're not concerned with the annual deficit. We're concerned with our total federal debts.
And we're concerned about the 100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that Congress has promised. We're going to be a rerun of Greece, as nobody in Congress has the guts to tackle the problem because they're all in spend mode.

I think everyone wants to cut the budget. The problem is everyone does not want to cut it the same way. When you mention cutting the defense budget, the rightwing goes nuts. When you mention cutting social programs the leftwing goes nuts. When you mention cutting out all the tax goodies for corporations, they go nuts. It seems to me the only fair way is simply to cut 10% from every department and program in the government. To think that leftists and rightwingers will accept cuts in their pet programs is crazy.

And, how much has the population grow in the past year? How many new workers entered the job market? The revenues should be much higher; we don't live in a nacent society. It keeps growing.