MacroPass™: David Stockman On Just How Out-Of-Control The Federal Deficit Is

The first five months of FY 2025 are “an outright budgetary abomination”

This week’s installment of our popular MacroPass™ service for premium members of this Substack comes from veteran government budget-cutter and financier David Stockman, who was featured in Sunday’s interview.

David, who understands government spending better than most people alive, is alarmed at just *how* out-of-control the deficit is right now — even as the DOGE team tries to slow it.

In his eyes, the first five months of FY 2025 are “an outright budgetary abomination”. The deficit currently stands at $1.15 trillion and the fiscal year isn’t even halfway over yet(!)

Can the new Administration really tame such as massive fiscal spending juggernaut?

Stockman gives his full opinion below.

As a reminder, MacroPass™ is a weekly rotating selection of premium analysis from many of the big thinkers interviewed on Thoughtful Money.

To-date that list of contributors includes experts like Lacy Hunt (Hoisington), Stephanie Pomboy (Macro Mavens), Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research), Tom McClellan, Michael Howell (Capital Wars), Darius Dale (42 Macro), Doomberg, Ted Oakley (Oxbow Advisors), Kevin Muir (The Macro Tourist), Alf Peccatiello (The Macro Compass), Lance Lambert (ResiClub), Ed Yardini (Yardini Research), David Hay (Haymaker), Melody Wright (M3_Melody), David Stockman (Contra Corner), David Brady (FIPEST Report), John Rubino, Adam Kobeissi (The Kobeissi Letter), Sven Henrich (Northman Trader), Jeff Clark (The Gold Advisor), Charles Hugh Smith, Steven Bavaria (Inside the Income Factory®), Chris Whalen (The Institutional Risk Analyst), Felix Zulauf, Jesse Felder (The Felder Report) and Brent Johnson (Macro Alchemist).

Recent MacroPass™ reports in this series include:

• Kevin Muir on 'The Bear Case' for markets

• Doomberg On the USA's fiscal outlook

• Michael Kantrowitz' on uncharacteristic economic green shoots

• Lacy Hunt's latest Quarterly Outlook

• Michael Howell's liquidity outlook for 2025

• Darius Dale's forecast for DOGE + full interview slides

If you’re already a premium subscriber to this Substack, just continue below to read David’s full post.

But if you’re not (yet), read the start of it below and consider upgrading to premium and access the full version, as well as all past and future MacroPass™ content.

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February’s Flashing Red Budget Warning: Federal Spending Was 2X Receipts

David Stockman

Mar 18

If you think Elon Musk is overdoing it with his deficit-howling, have a gander at the US Treasury report for February. It turns out that the deficit during the month at $307 billion actually exceeded revenue collections of $296 billion. That is to say, Uncle Sam was merrily coasting along spending more than twice the amount of revenues coming in!

And yet and yet. The mainstream media is in a nonstop shrieking mode about Elon’s cuts, which actually aren’t cuts at all, but just an expose of the stupidity, waste and venality rampant in the Swamp. That—along with the degree to which the Fed’s relentless money-printing and monetization of the public debt has anesthetized the Washington ruling class from the economic consequences of its decades-long fiscal debauch.

Admittedly, one month is not sufficient time to assess whether the DOGE boys are making any difference at all in slowing Washington’s headlong plunge into fiscal disaster. But when you run $11 billion of red ink per day as did the US Treasury during February you don’t have much time to spare when