CBO: Federal Revenue to Set Record in 2013

[Freewill]

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

CBO: Federal Revenue to Set Record in 2013 | CNS News

Hmm, this is interesting and seems like it counters what President-lie-alot has been telling us. The man really needs to get asbestos pants.

 

[Geaux4it]

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

Hmm, this is interesting and seems like it counters what President-lie-alot has been telling us. The man really needs to get asbestos pants.

Hmm, this is interesting and seems like it counters what President-lie-alot has been telling us. The man really needs to get asbestos pants.[/quote]

Man... And America elected this agenda?

Genius

-Geaux

 

[healthmyths]

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

CBO: Federal Revenue to Set Record in 2013 | CNS News

Hmm, this is interesting and seems like it counters what President-lie-alot has been telling us. The man really needs to get asbestos pants.

"This projection could undercut a key argument made by the White House that any balanced approach to deficit reduction must include more federal revenue in the form of “tax reform.”

“Now, I think this balanced mix of spending cuts and tax reform is the best way to finish the job of deficit reduction,” President Obama said in a speech on February 5.

Republicans counter that additional tax revenue is not necessary, citing the tax increases on wealthier Americans they agreed to as part of the January deal to make permanent most of the Bush tax cuts."

It's called "killing the golden goose" syndrome when Democrats continual think the ONLY way to increase revenue is to TAX or seize more of the golden goose, i.e. those that pay most of the taxes!

It certainly isn't the increase in workers that created the additional tax revenue except for the SS taxes going back to 6.2%.

 

[rightwinger]

Great news!

Lets pay off some debt. About time we started to get some reasonable revenue stream

 

[The Rabbi]

Great news!

Lets pay off some debt. About time we started to get some reasonable revenue stream

Bad news for you, nutwinger. Obama and Dems done spent all that money. And then some. There is none for debt reduction. But fortunately we have plenty to give out free cell phones, free contraceptives, and free Cowboy Poetry Festivals. Hope you like it!

 

[DiamondDave]

Great news!

Lets pay off some debt. About time we started to get some reasonable revenue stream

Spending is still at record levels..

Maybe if there were not a graduated system and every citizen were actually paying federal income tax, and we had a government that stayed within the limits it was set up to have, you would not have what YOU and your ilk perceive to be as a revenue problem

 

[Skull Pilot]

Great news!

Lets pay off some debt. About time we started to get some reasonable revenue stream

It's only reasonable if you spend less than you take in.

We are far from reasonable since we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend.

 

[boedicca]

With this record revenue it should very easy to reduce the deficit to $300B quite quickly.

In 2007, the last peak year of federal receipts, receipts were $2,568 billion and outlays were $2,729 billion.

If we index the 2007 outlay figure to inflation, that amount would be $3,029B. Clearly, spending is the problem. Government spending has increased grossly above the inflation adjusted amount - actual spending has increased more than three times the rate of inflation. There is no reason for that. Have the wages of taxpayers increased more than 3 times the rate of inflation during this period? No.

Roll back the spending binge.

 

[Mad Scientist]

"This projection could undercut a key argument made by the White House that any balanced approach to deficit reduction must include more federal revenue in the form of “tax reform.”

"Projection" is a good way to describe it, like Hollywood Movies are "projected" on the screen but none of it has any basis in reality. It's all an illusion.

In April/May when the Tax receipts start coming in we'll see if those "projections" were correct.

 

[Star]

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

CBO: Federal Revenue to Set Record in 2013 | CNS News

Hmm, this is interesting and seems like it counters what President-lie-alot has been telling us. The man really needs to get asbestos pants.

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) may have gotten his mis-information from the same source as OP's Conservative News Service article,

Politifact says: Mostly False

​

We rate McCarthy’s statement Mostly False ~ PolitiFact | Kevin McCarthy says federal government has more revenue now than ‘any other time’



There’s no need to raise taxes as part of reducing the nation’s deficit, says House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy.

Broad, blunt spending cuts known as the sequester go into effect March 1 unless Congress steps in. Democrats would prefer to reduce the deficit partly by raising taxes.

But the California Republican argued on Fox News that any solution should cut spending only — there’s plenty of revenue, he said.

"There's more money going in than any other time," he told host Greta Van Susteren on Feb. 25, 2013. "In the last four decades, on average, we brought in 17.9 percent of GDP. Now we're going to bring in 19.1."

Is the federal government collecting more than it ever has — more than it has on average the last 40 years?

Here’s what we found.

‘The last four decades’

McCarthy talked about "percent of GDP," a common tool of economists evaluating the impact of tax policies over time. They prefer to compare tax revenues as a percentage of the overall U.S. economy, the gross domestic product.

It’s fairly easy to see why — using raw numbers wouldn’t account for inflation or changes in population, for example.

Was McCarthy correct that the federal government used to collect, on average, 17.9 percent of the gross domestic product, and that the number will rise to 19.1 percent?

McCarthy’s office pointed us to reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

A recent CBO analysis says that, indeed, federal revenue is projected to rise with changes in the law, such as the recent end to Bush tax cuts on households making more than $450,000 a year.

"Revenues are projected to grow from 15.8 percent of GDP in 2012 to 19.1 percent of GDP in 2015 — compared with an average of 17.9 percent of GDP over the past 40 years," CBO’s analysts conclude.

So McCarthy accurately cites a reputable source when he says the federal government has collected an average of 17.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product over four decades, and now is "going to bring in 19.1."

(We should mention that even with higher revenue, CBO projects that deficits will increase "because of the pressures of an aging population, rising health care costs, an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance, and growing interest payments on federal debt.")

But what about McCarthy’s claim that "there's more money going in than any other time"? That’s messier.

‘More money’

So, remember how percentage of GDP is a useful tool for comparing revenue over time?

The government will pull in 16.9 percent in 2013, lower than the average over the last 40 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s not more money than at "any other time," as McCarthy said.

What about in 2015, when the government is projected to bring in 19.1 percent?

That’s still lower than revenue as a percentage of GDP in seven years of the last 40 — also not more money than at "any other time."

Federal revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product

1981: 19.6 percent
1982: 19.2 percent

1997: 19.2 percent
1998: 19.9 percent
1999: 19.8 percent
2000: 20.6 percent
2001: 19.5 percent

Source: Congressional Budget Office

McCarthy’s office told PolitiFact that CBO projects revenue in 2013 will be the highest ever in raw numbers, at $2.708 trillion, up from $2.568 trillion in 2007.

But that’s not the measure a listener would have assumed from McCarthy’s comments, which focused on revenue as a percentage of GDP — not raw numbers.

Nor are raw numbers a useful way to compare amounts of money over time.

The value of the dollar changes. Population changes. That means revenue in raw terms mostly climbs by default.

Tax policy experts we spoke with called comparisons based on raw numbers "lousy," "never valid" and "silly."

"Ignoring the increased value of the dollar and population growth both distort comparisons and make them meaningless," said Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.

Our ruling

McCarthy told Fox News, "There's more money going in than any other time. In the last four decades, on average, we brought in 17.9 percent of GDP. Now we're going to bring in 19.1."

Starting in 2015, reputable projections show revenue rising to 19.1 percent of GDP, up from an average of 17.9 over the last four decades. But McCarthy’s wrong to say that there’s more money coming in than at any other time.

In fact, the nation collected more than 19.1 percent of GDP in seven years of the last 40. To say that the nation will collect the most revenue in raw dollars in 2013, according to tax experts, is meaningless.

<snip>
.

 

[The Rabbi]

Oh,"tax experts" tell us this.

OK. We've had very low inflation since 2007. So the dollars are basically buying the same thing. The only major change is the size of federal expenditures. These have gone up. Way up. If the economy is not producing as much tax revenue that is not the fault of the system but of the economy, which remains depressed by high levels of gov't spendiing and regulation.
It is a fool's message. Based on that we will never have sufficient revenue. The truth is as stated: the treasury will take in more money this year than at any other time since 2007--a record year and we will have the largest deficit since then as well. It's the spending, stupid.

 

[tooAlive]

"This projection could undercut a key argument made by the White House that any balanced approach to deficit reduction must include more federal revenue in the form of “tax reform.”

"Projection" is a good way to describe it, like Hollywood Movies are "projected" on the screen but none of it has any basis in reality. It's all an illusion.

In April/May when the Tax receipts start coming in we'll see if those "projections" were correct.

It's hard to take you seriously after looking at your username and avatar.