By Alan Joel ——Bio and Archives--October 17, 2014
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"The government first hit the $1 trillion revenue mark in 1990, then hit the $2 trillion mark in 2000. But President George W. Bush's tax cuts and the bursting of the 1990s Internet bubble cut into revenue, dropping it to $1.8 trillion in 2003, before it began the shaky climb to $3 trillion. Just five years ago, in 2009, the trough of the recession, revenue was only $2.1 trillion. That means it's leapt $900 billion in just five years."And here's where the dichotomy lies. The Left sees high government revenue as something to be celebrated, while the Right understands that high government revenue means less money for the private sector. "Every one of those $3 trillion is sucked out of the private-sector economy and makes the private sector smaller," said Chris Edwards, director of tax-policy studies at the Cato Institute. "The $3 trillion isn't free. It comes out of our pockets and from the private economy."
"So, compared to the deficit surplus of $180 billion for 2015-24 that a straight extrapolation from the CBO's 2012 scoring would yield, current projections now indicate that Obamacare's decreased spending (in relation to prior expectations) will reduce deficits by another $83 billion (bringing the estimated surplus to $263 billion), but those projected surpluses will be more than offset by the projected $132 billion decrease in Medicare revenue and $262 billion decrease in tax revenue due to lower job growth. In all, therefore, CBO projections indicate that Obamacare will increase deficit spending by $131 billion from 2015-24. That's a $311 billion swing from the extrapolated 2012 numbers, a $240 billion swing from the actual 2012 numbers, and a $255 billion swing from what we were told when Obamacare was passed.So, this fiscal year was more of the same. Government overspending, gleefully celebrated by record tax collections of your hard earned dollars. The rapacious government needs to be fed.
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Alan Joel has been a practicing CPA in NYC for more than 40 years. He loves liberty and writes on the politics of taxes at his popular blog, AlanJoelNY.com