Professional Misinformation Idiot strikes again!

Ah, the sweet smell of an internet flame job.

My stalker made some more inane comments.

Let's share some of those.

"As for your income tax/defense budget statement, that too is incorrect. If you look at BEA data, personal income taxes in 2007 were $1.162 trillion. Defense expenditures (incl. investment) was $660.2 billion. Interest payments were $302.4 billion, meaning 1/2 was $151.2 billion.

So in fact, in 2007, we could pay the entire defense expenditures, all interest payments, and still have about $200 billion left. That's far beyond your "barely enough left over to pay the current interest on the debt for six months" comment."

The BEA data is not the best source of information, my dear friend.

Look at the information released by the Treasury Department. The Treasury has to write the checks and balance the books.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis is under the Department of Commerce. The Commerce people are like the Wal-Mart of the federal government.

If the Treasury Department figures at link are correct, and I'm pretty dang sure they are, then in five months, the federal government has paid $198 billion dollars for interest on the debt. In five months.

In December 2007, actual interest expense was $106 billion dollars. Last year's expenses were $429 billion dollars. We haven't paid as little as $300 billion on the debt since 1996, some 12 years ago when the debt was $5.3 trillion dollars.

Where does this stalker get his information?

For his defense spending, Herr Agent would have us all believe the federal government only spends $660 billion on defense!

Not that far off from the real world figures. But, still short of real defense spending.

We should add the defense-related parts of the Department of Energy budget --- $16.6 billion. The Department of Homeland Security --- $69.1 billion. The Department of State and international assistance programs --- $25.3 billion for defense purposes either directly or indirectly. The Department of Veterans Affairs --- $69.8 billion. The Department of the Treasury, which pays military retirement known as the Military Retirement Fund, --- $38.5 billion. Some parts of NASA are defense spending, if only indirectly so. Total --- $728.2 billion.

For 2008, the House passed a $696 billion defense bill on January 16, 2008. We can only guess at the 'emergency appropriations that will be added later by Bush. Bush has run both the Iran invasion and the Afghanistan campaigns with 'emergency supplemental appropriations.

What are 'emergency' or supplemental appropriations?

From the Background Brief: Supplemental Appropriations, March 2007 (OMB)

A “supplemental” appropriation is spending legislation, generally but not exclusively requested by the president, intended to address a need not known or foreseen when the annual budget for the given fiscal year was drawn up. Requests generally lack the level of detail used to justify the government’s annual budget requests. In both houses of Congress, supplemental spending legislation is uniformly referred to the Appropriations Committee, where it is marked-up shortly thereafter, usually without a preliminary hearing. If reported favorably, it is sent to the floor for debate, amendment, and vote. As with other legislation, identical versions must be approved by both houses and signed by the president to be enacted. The result frequently is legislation that passes Congress with perfunctory review, often bearing items that would not survive the normal budgetary review process.

This practice has survived the 2002 expiration of the BEA, and, since then, supplemental spending – “emergency” spending – has, in effect become a way for the federal government to evade annual budget limits and fiscal responsibility controls while increasing spending.

Because emergency supplementals are introduced following submission of a fiscal year’s budget, they are not subject to OMB’s budget accounting rules, and therefore not included in deficit and debt projections (Under its own rules, however, CBO does project all discretionary appropriations into future years, regardless of the purpose of the appropriation).

As if the $696 billion passed by the House in January wasn't enough. Bush requested over $90 billion for Iraq in March 2007. By July, Bush had been given about $124 billion. By using 'emergency' or supplemental appropriations, this money is not included in the 'defense' budget for 2007.

The 'emergency' appropriation for 2008? $154 billion.

So the minimum 'defense spending' for 2008 will be the $696 billion appropriated by the House, plus the $154 billion in 'emergency' appropriations.

That will be over $850 billion for 2008. Not including any 'defense spending' hidden in other departments besides the DOD aka the Pentagon.

$850 billion+$196 billion( only five months of fiscal 2008)=$1.046 trillion which equals ... "barely enough left over to pay the current interest on the debt for six months."

EVEN if the IRS (the IRS does not have final public figures for 2006 or 2007. The 2007 tax filing season is not yet over) collects the BEA figure of $1.162 trillion, which my dear friend loves, our personal income taxes will not be enough to pay the interest on the debt and defense spending for the current fiscal year. I calculate we will be short at the end of March when the quarterly checks for accrued interest are sent out. (Just like in December when payments were over $100 billion, certain debt instruments get quarterly checks while other instruments get monthly checks. March should see another $100 billion paid out by the Treasury.

Our agent smells from being flamed, as the saying goes on the internet.

I will acknowledge that our friend says, "IF you will look at BEA data ... "

There's no reason to look at estimated figures from the Department of Commerce when primary source information from the IRS and the Treasury are equally easy to obtain.