Rising tariff revenues aren’t coming close to covering mounting deficits. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:
During a July 20 interview, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made an unbelievable claim. He bragged that the US was collecting close to $30 billion a month in tariffs. He then went on to say: “You got to remember — this is going to pay off our deficit.”
No one who pays attention to federal fiscal policy actually believed this statement. And, if there was any doubt about the dubious claim, July’s Treasury report, released on Tuesday, makes it clear just how wrong Lutnick is. According to the July report, federal deficits are a long way from being paid off by new taxes on imports. Instead, federal deficits are getting bigger as Trump’s spending spree shows no signs of abating.
Specifically, July’s federal spending came in as the highest ever, topping even the grotesque spending of July 2020 during the dark days of the covid panic.
According to the Treasury, in July, the US government collected $338 billion. That’s up $8 billion from the previous July, so maybe Lutnick and Trump think this is very impressive and something to brag about. The problem is the US government also spent $629 billion during the same period. That is, Trump and Congress spent nearly two dollars for every dollar in tax revenue, for a monthly deficit of $291 billion. That’s up 19 percent over July of 2024 and is the largest July deficit in four years. July’s deficit even comes close to July 2021’s deficit of $302 billion, which occurred during a period of runaway covid spending.
Lutnick that lived next to Epstein for years?
I think we’re going to need a bigger printing press.
Prices at das Grocery are OOC out of control.