UPDATED—Remember The "Stealth" Stimulus? It's Real And It Is Magnificent (and growing fast)

Update: The U.S. Treasury just reported their version of the numbers and they are even worse than the CBO numbers: "https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/files/reports-statements/mts/mts1223.pdf"

Original post:

Reusing the introduction from August 2023's Big Money: "U.S. Budget Deficit: July Data":

J.P. Morgan was wrong to call it "stealth" stimulus. It's not stealth, it's right there out in the open for all the world to see.

The fact that it is stimulus is not in question. Every penny of deficit spending is stimulus.

From the Congressional Budget Office, January 9:

Monthly Budget Review: December 2023 

The federal budget deficit totaled $509 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, CBO estimates—$87 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year.

Summary

The federal budget deficit totaled $509 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $87 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year: Although revenues this year were $83 billion (or 8 percent) higher, outlays rose more—by $170 billion (or 12 percent).

Shifts in the timing of certain federal payments affected the budget both in fiscal year 2023 and in fiscal year 2024. Outlays in the first quarter of each year were reduced by shifts of certain payments that otherwise would have been due on October 1, which fell on a weekend. (Those payments were made in September 2022 and September 2023, respectively.) Partially offsetting those reductions, some outlays that would have occurred on January 1, a holiday, were shifted into December of each year. If not for both sets of shifts, the deficit thus far would have been $553 billion, $94 billion more than the shortfall for the same period in fiscal year 2023.

....MUCH MORE (CBO download page) 

Regarding whether or not deficit spending is stimulus, one of those gedankenexperiments that Einstein used to simplify the complex should suffice. From July 2023:

Why Does The U.S. Economy Need $154 Billion-737 Million In Stimulus PER MONTH?

Noting the One Trillion, Three Hundred Ninety Two Billion dollar nine-month deficit when once again I ask myself "Self, what would happen to the U.S. economy if we stopped the stimulus?"

And though I don't have experiential knowledge, I'm pretty sure the answer is "the economy would collapse."

That is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, always hustling the new money to keep the game going just a little bit longer until...

Until what? Until the current batch of politicians can retire and get on with their lobbying businesses? Until the Sweet Meteor of Death strikes and clears the books for this go-round?

I was reminded of a March 2009 post:
The optimal design of Ponzi schemes in finite economies...

The deficit isn't down to a one-off in either receipts or expenditures, the damn thing is getting bigger with each report.

CBO Monthly Budget Review: July 2023

More tomorrow.