By Ron Newall
While the rest of America was
holding an election last week, the gnomes at the Congressional Budget Office
released the final budget totals for fiscal 2012. They're worth reporting
because they illuminate the real fiscal choices that confront the country, as
opposed to the posturing you'll be hearing over the next few weeks.
The nearby table lays out the
ugly details. The feds rolled up another $1.1 trillion deficit for the year
that ended September 30, which was the biggest deficit since World War II, except
for each of the previous three years. President Obama can now proudly claim the
four largest deficits in modern history. As a share of GDP, the deficit fell to
7% last year, which was still above any single year of the Reagan Presidency,
or any other year since Truman worked in the Oval Office.
Tax
revenue kept climbing, up 6.4% for the year overall, and at $2.45 trillion it
is now close to the historic high it reached in fiscal 2007 before the
recession hit. Mr. Obama won't want you to know this, but this revenue increase
is occurring under the Bush tax rates that he so desperately wants to raise in
the name of getting what he says is merely "a little more in taxes."
Individual income tax payments are now up $233 billion over the last two years,
or 26%.
This healthy revenue increase
comes despite measly economic growth of between 1% and 2%. Imagine the gusher
of revenue the feds could get if government got out of the way and let the
economy grow faster.