Debt stays frozen for 15 days...
Debt Frozen at $19,808,747,000,000—For 15 Days
March 31, 2017 | The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress plummeted by $56,758,000,000 on March 15 hitting its lowest level of 2017, according to the Daily Treasury Statement. On that same day, the federal debt hit its legal limit, according to the same Daily Treasury Statements.
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$374,793,000,000: Sales Taxes Hit Record in 2016
March 30, 2017 | Americans paid a record $374,793,000,000 in general sales and gross receipt taxes to state and local governments in fiscal 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Debt Frozen at $19,808,747,000,000—For 15 Days
March 31, 2017 | The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress plummeted by $56,758,000,000 on March 15 hitting its lowest level of 2017, according to the Daily Treasury Statement. On that same day, the federal debt hit its legal limit, according to the same Daily Treasury Statements.
For the 15 days since then, according to the Treasury’s statements, the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $19,808,747,000,000—approximately $25 million below the new legal limit. The debt was able to hit its legal limit—even on a day when it was plunging dramatically--because when the Republican Congress and President Barack Obama on Nov. 2, 2015 enacted the most recent legislation lifting the legal limit on the debt they did not actually set a new limit. Instead, they suspended the debt limit, which allowed the federal government to borrow money and run up new debt without any limit at all throughout the election year of 2016. The “Bipartisan Budget Act” that the Republican Congress passed and Obama signed--one year before the 2016 election—included language saying that the existing law that imposed a limit on the federal debt “shall not apply for the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2017.”
Congress titled this section of the law the “Temporary Extension of the Public Debt Limit.” It provided that when the “temporary extension” expired on March 15, 2017, the debt limit would be set again at whatever level it hit that day. Ironically, according to the Daily Treasury Statement for March 15, 2017, the debt subject to the limit dropped by $56,758,000,000 on that day. As a consequence, the debt hit its new limit as the debt was dropping. Even more ironically, after its precipitous drop on March 15, the debt hit its lowest level for calendar year 2017. On Jan. 6, the federal debt subject to the legal limit hit its highest point of $19,941,890,000,000. On March 16, following the terms of the Bipartisan Budget Act, the Treasury set the new debt limit at exactly $19,808,772,381,624.74. That means the new debt limit is more than $133 billion below the level the debt hit on Jan. 6.
The Daily Treasury Statement for March 15 shows the "Total Public Debt Subject to Limit" dropping to $19,808,747,000,000, the lowest level of calendar year 2017.
Since the Daily Treasury Statement for March 15, the day the suspension of the debt limit expired, the Treasury has reported that the debt subject to the limit has closed every business day at $19,808,747,000,000—or about $25 million below the new legal limit. For 15 straight days (March 15-29), the Daily Treasury Statements have said the same thing: the debt subject to the limit is frozen at $19,808,747,000,000. At the same time, both the “debt held by the public,” consisting of Treasury bills, notes and bonds, and the “intragovernmental debt,” consisting of money the Treasury has borrowed and spent from government trust funds (such as the Social Security trust fund), continue to fluctuate on a daily basis.
The Daily Treasury Statement for March 29 shows the "Total Debt Subject to Limit" beginning and ending the day at $19,808,747,000,000--about $25 million below the new statutory limit.
For example, the Daily Treasury Statement for March 29, the latest one published, shows that the federal “debt held by the public” increased by $2,435,000,000—rising from $14,347,300,000,000 at the beginning of the day to $14,349,735,000,000 at the close of business. It also shows that the “intragovernmental” debt decreased by $2,471,000,000—dropping from $5,498,562,000,000 at the beginning of the day to $5,496,091,000,000 at the close of business. On the same day, the federal “debt subject to the limit” began the day at $19,808,747,000,000 and remained at $19,808,747,000,000 at the close of business.
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$374,793,000,000: Sales Taxes Hit Record in 2016
March 30, 2017 | Americans paid a record $374,793,000,000 in general sales and gross receipt taxes to state and local governments in fiscal 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
That was up $1,535,980,000—or about 0.4 percent—from the $373,257,020,000 in general sales and gross receipt taxes (in constant 2016 dollars) that state and local governments collected in fiscal 2015. Fiscal 2016 was the third year in a row that general sales and gross receipt taxes set a record. Prior to fiscal 2014, when general sales and gross receipt taxes hit a then-record $356,969,050,000 (in constant 2016 dollars), the peak year for general sales and gross receipt taxes had been fiscal 2007, when state and local governments collected $353,205,000,000 in these taxes. In fiscal 2008, 2009 and 2010, sales and gross receipt tax collections declined. Then, in fiscal 2011, they started climbing again.
The nationwide total for general sales and gross receipt taxes collected by state and local governments in fiscal 2016 was released last week with the Census Bureau’s “Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenue for 2016: Q4.” The fiscal year 2016 that the Census Bureau references in this data is the year that runs from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. That is because most states end their fiscal years on June 30. The Census Bureau defines “general sales or gross receipt taxes” as “sales or gross receipts taxes which are applicable with only specified exceptions to all types of goods and services, or all gross income, whether at a single rate or classified rates.”
According to the Census Bureau, “general sales or gross receipt taxes” do not include what it calls “selective sales taxes,” which include taxes imposed on items such as alcoholic beverages, amusements, insurance, motor fuels, and tobacco products. Although total inflation-adjusted general sales and gross receipt taxes hit a record of $374,793,000,000 in fiscal 2016, inflation-adjusted per capita general sales and gross receipt taxes hit their peak in fiscal 2006. That year, state and local governments collected $353,040,060,000 (in 2016 dollars) in general sales and gross receipt taxes, which equaled approximately $1,183 for every one of the 298,379,912 men, women and children the Census Bureau estimated were residing in the United States as of July 1, 2006.
The record $374,793,000,000 in total general sales and gross receipts taxes that state and local governments collected in fiscal 2016 equaled approximately $1,160 for every one of the 323,127,513 men, women and children the Census Bureau estimated were residing in the United States as of July 1, 2016. As CNSNews.com previously reported, state and local governments also collected a record $540,701,000,000 in property taxes in fiscal 2016. That equaled approximately $1,673 for every one of the 323,127,513 men, women and children in the United States as of July 1, 2016. The combined record total of $915,494,000,000 in property and general sales and gross receipts taxes that state and local governments collected in fiscal 2016 equaled approximately $2,833 for every man, women in child residing in the United States as of last July 1.
$374,793,000,000: Sales Taxes Hit Record in 2016
