In April a $114 increase was booked by the U.S Treasury Department, this is the biggest increase in money this month has seen since 2008, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Overall spending has decreased 2%. The drop is due to lower than expected interest payments and other spending, including defense.
Unemployment benefits went down 31%. Federal spending on unemployment insurance: Annual outlays increased from an average of $33 billion from 2004 through 2007 to $119 billion in 2009 and $155 billion in 2010; they dropped to $93 billion in 2012 and are expected to decline further over the next few years. Out of all the areas to reduce spending this is a great one to do so. Unemployment effects a small amount of people compared to the other areas of spending.
The trend in higher tax receipts and lower overall spending has been in effect for awhile. Although people might not like higher taxes I definitely think it is for the better of the country. In order to decrease the debt deficit it is essential to decrease spending and increase taxes, reasonably.
What surprised me was the decrease in spending by 5%. Military spending is greater than Medicare ($529 billion), Medicaid ($331 billion), or the interest payment on the debt ($251). It's also more than the three next largest departments combined: Health and Human Services ($73.1 billion), Education ($68.6 billion) and Housing and Urban Development ($32.6 billion). With defense being the main concern in this country I did not expect for spending to decrease that much. I thought it would stay relatively steady. But because military spending is so expensive a 5% decrease is a lot of money. I do think it was a good decision to decrease spending on military.
