Re: US debt service versus revenues

From: William F Hummel (wfhummel_at_comcast.net)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 15:35:19 GMT

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:31:28 -0400, "RueTheDay" <ruetheday@outgun.com>
wrote:

>"William F Hummel" <wfhummel@comcast.net> wrote in message
>news:gg27l09qkq96cd1ri16baihpsijklo2324@4ax.com...
>> >
>> In the current fiscal year, interest payments on the debt held by the
>> public will be about 14% of government spending. Go to the US
>> Treasury website for details.
>
>According to the OMB, net interest comprised 7.1% of the federal budget for
>2003 and is forecast to be 6.7% in 2004. So you're off by about a factor of
>2.
>
>http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/sheets/hist03z1.xls
>
Looking at the data you cited, in FY 2003 (the latest complete year of
data), total interest payments were 320 billion. Total outlays were
2,314 billion. Interest payments comprised 13.8% of government
spending, which is consistent with what I indicated above.

Looking further, the US Treasury Bureau of Public Debt at
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdint.htm shows a total of 318
billion in interest paid to the public in FY2003.

The US Treasury Financial Management Services Bureau at
http://www.fms.treas.gov/mts/mts0903.pdf shows total outlays for FY
2003 of 2,157 billion.

Using this figures, interest payments comprised 14.7% of government
spending. Take your choice, but the actuals are somewhere around 14%.