White House: Deficit Will Increase 20% This Year (Despite Record Tax Revenue)

February 3, 2015 - 12:00 PM

(CNSNews.com) - The data that the White House published with President Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget proposal yesterday indicate that the federal deficit will increase by 20 percent during this fiscal year (2015) even though the administration predicts the Treasury will bring in record revenue during the year.

According to Table S-1 in the “Summary Tables” appendix to the Obama budget, the deficit was $485 billion in fiscal 2014 and will be $583 billion in fiscal 2015—an increase of $98 billion, or 20.2 percent.

The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.

In fiscal year 2015, according to the Obama budget tables, the federal government will take in $3.176 trillion in tax revenue and spend $3.759 trillion.

The $3.176 trillion in tax revenues the White House estimates the federal government will bring in this year is a record in both current and inflation-adjusted dollars.

According to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s historical table that shows federal tax receipts and outlays in constant 2009 dollars, fiscal 2015 federal receipts will equal $2.8952 trillion in constant 2009 dollars.

The previous record for inflation-adjusted federal tax revenue in a fiscal year, according to the OMB, was last year, when the federal government brought in $2.7912 in constant 2009 dollars.

In current year dollars, according to the OMB, federal tax receipts were $3.0215 in fiscal 2014—the first time they ever exceeded three trillion. This year’s receipts, OMB estimates, will be $3.1761 in current dollars.

In his speech announcing the release of his budget proposal yesterday, President Obama said: “Now, since I took office, we have cut our deficits by about two-thirds.”

“Since 2010,” says the Obama budget proposal, “federal deficits have shrunk at an historic pace—the most rapid sustained deficit reduction since the period just after World War II. The turn away from austerity in 2014 was ac­companied by another steep drop in the deficit, bringing it to 2.8 percent of GDP—the lowest level since 2007, about one-third the size of the deficit the president inherited, and below the 40-year average.”

Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, in the fourth month of fiscal 2009. On Feb. 17, 2009, he signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), his economic stimulus bill.

“When ARRA was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019,” the CBO said in a report published last year. “CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009–2019 period will amount to about $830 billion. By CBO’s estimate, close to half of that impact occurred in fiscal year 2010, and more than 95 percent of ARRA’s budgetary impact was realized by the end of December 2013.”

On March 11, 2009, Obama signed the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, which the Washington Post described as “a $410 billion spending bill to fund most of the federal government for the remainder of the year.”

In fiscal 2008, the last full fiscal year when George W. Bush was president, the federal deficit was $458.6 billion, according to the historical tables published by the White House OMB. In fiscal 2009, presided over by both Bush and Obama, the deficit was $1.4127 trillion. In 2010, it was $1.2944. In 2011, it was $1.2996 trillion. In 2012, it was $1.0870 trillion. In 2013, it was $679.5 billion. In 2014, it was $484.6 billion. And, in 2015, the OMB is estimating it will be $582.5 billion.

The fiscal 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion was 3.1 percent of GDP, according to the OMB. The OMB estimates that the $582.5 billion deficit it is projecting for this year will be 3.2 percent of GDP.

Since Obama took office, the federal debt has climbed from $10,626,877,048,913.08 to $18,082,294,157,510.20--an increase of $7,455,417,108,597.12.

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