Friday Open Thread [4.18.14]
Good news on the deficit on this Good Friday:
The U.S. government’s deficit will fall to $492 billion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a steeper drop than originally predicted from $680 billion in fiscal year 2013. The 2014 deficit will be 2.8 percent of the economy, according to CBO, almost 32 percent below fiscal year 2013, when it was 4.1 percent. The deficit will shrink again in fiscal 2015 to $469 billion….
“This will be the fifth consecutive year in which the deficit has declined as a share of GDP since peaking at 9.8 percent in 2009,” CBO said in a report released today. The 2.8 figure as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower than the 3.1 percent average of the last 40 years, CBO said.
Some polling goodness:
TEXAS–GOVERNOR–Public Policy Polling: Greg Abbott (R) 51, Wendy Davis (D) 37
FLORIDA–GOVERNOR–Survey USA: Charlie Crist (D) 46, Gov. Rick Scott (R) 41.
MAINE–GOVERNOR–Pan Atlantic SMS: Gov. Paul LePage (R) 39, Rep. Michael Michaud (D) 37 and Eliot Cutler (I) 20.
MASSACHUSETTS–GOVERNOR–DEMOCRATIC PARTY–UMass-Amherst: Martha Coakley (D) 39, Steve Grossman 9, Don Berwick 3 and Juliette Kayyern 3.
SOUTH CAROLINA–GOVERNOR–Rasmussen : Gov. Nikki Haley (R) 52, Vincent Sheheen (D) 37.
OHIO–GOVERNOR–Public Policy Polling: Gov. John Kasich (R) 44, Ed Fitzgerald (D) 44.
Watch as the deficit hawks switch to being debt hawks. All the old deficit-based arguments for austerity will be restated as debt-based arguments, as if nobody knows the difference (and they are probably correct about that). Bottom line is that the poor still have too much money and the rich don’t have enough.